The following letter has been received for publication in The Newtown Bee:

Good morning BOE Members,

First, I wanted to thank you for your service to the Town. It is a tough position and I have the utmost respect for you taking on the enormous responsibility of guiding the education of our students.

Since the Board is charged with “best serving the interests of the Town,” I want to ask that you carefully consider the negative potential impact of banning books in the high school library. A Special Committee was appointed per a policy that was designed to leverage the local expertise in our school system to review the books in question.

The Special Committee made a unanimous recommendation that the books should not be banned. Based on that recommendation the BOE should have ended the discussion and voted to support their recommendation.

The Special Committee has clearly been attacked and ridiculed for their recommendation, and the lack of support by members of the BOE is disappointing. The BOE has a fiduciary responsibility to not only look out for the best interests of all students in our community, but also to support the committees they charged with evaluating what is a divisive topic.

Thank you for taking the time to read my e-mail.

Sincerely,

Gavin Arneth

Sandy Hook