Eugene School District 4J forbids me from taking notes on the health curriculum

Oregon education standards require that fifth graders be able to define gender identity. The state’s definition is:

a person's internal sense of being male, female or some other gender, regardless of whether the individual's appearance, expression or behavior differs from that traditionally associated with the individual's sex assigned at birth

Since I find this incoherent, I’ve decided to logically audit how our schools are teaching this alongside biological sex.

4J, like many Oregon school districts, uses The Great Body Shop for their elementary health curriculum. It’s a series of 70 teacher guidebooks (10 per grade) and corresponding student activity pamphlets.

The guidebooks are educator-facing lesson scripts. Families don’t get copies, and you can't buy them anywhere. When I emailed the publisher requesting access, they replied:

We as a publisher are proponents of transparency between family teams and school districts for the curriculum being taught within the schools. However, since each district ultimately decides what topics or parts of our materials they will include or not include in the classrooms, we recommend that families work with their district to view the materials being taught.

The Great Body Shop website does not mention gender identity, as not all markets use those lessons. So a public records request (or happening to know an articulate eight-year-old) is the only way to figure out what’s in these books.

I made two parallel requests.

One is a broad records request to get a picture of 4J’s policies and curriculum, and the other is a material examination request (under ORS 336.465) to get my hands on the actual books.

When I asked if I could record audio notes while reading the books, the secondary curriculum administrator, Courtney Leonard, replied in an email:

Due to copyright laws and our contracted agreements with vendors, we can’t have any recordings. You are welcome to take written notes, yes.

All the materials will be at a desk in our office space with staff moving in and out over the course of the afternoon. Our office usually closes around 4 pm and I’m guessing that will give you plenty of time to review materials.

Courtney guessed wrong.

When I arrived on April 30, I was greeted by a few thousand pages of Great Body Shop guides (and another 700 pages of Live Well, the high school health curriculum).

I asked Courtney if she was sure I couldn’t take audio notes. She told me that the district’s “stringent agreements with publishers” forbid recordings of any kind.

After two hours of furious typing, I'd transcribed less than 10% of what I needed.

I told Courtney, who’d mostly stayed out of sight, that I needed more time.

I returned for another two hour session the following Tuesday, May 5.

This time, Courtney worked at a standing desk directly behind me, and facing me.

She advised me that if I needed a third session, it would have to wait until the following week.

I said I needed at least 20 more hours, and that at this rate I'd be in her office for months. I asked if there was any way she could set me up with the books in another room.

Courtney said that the publisher requires an administrator to be physically present during public inspection.

This assertion, especially in combination with the supposed no-audio-recording rule, was hard to believe. I asked to see the agreement. Courtney said she didn't have it, and advised me to request it from the district. (I did. They have another couple weeks to produce it. The Great Body Shop did not respond to my email asking if these restrictions are actually in the agreement.)

I said I’d prefer to work something out with Courtney rather than escalate and fight the district on this.

Courtney said, “Well, you’re here, we’re giving you access. There are just scheduling conflicts.”

I said, “My schedule is open, so they’re not really conflicts.”

She said, “Mine isn’t so open.” She added that she didn’t understand what my project was, but said that typically parents come in and review materials for just one grade, not the whole curriculum.

I said that my fight would be with 4J, not with Courtney personally. However, I added, for both our sakes it’s probably better to just work out a different solution.

Courtney smiled and assured me that she doesn’t mind my presence in the office.

Searching for wiggle room, I asked if the agreements specify that the materials actually can’t leave the room, or just the building.

Courtney said, “This is a space, the materials are in it, and they can’t leave.”

On Sunday, May 10, I received this email:

Review of District School Materials

Dear Mr. Karson,

Thank you for your interest in reviewing Eugene School District 4J’s health curriculum materials. To date, the District has provided you with two opportunities to inspect the K-12 curriculum at no charge.

As a member of the public requesting access to curriculum materials, you may continue to inspect these materials pursuant to Oregon public records law. However, the District is permitted to recover its actual costs associated with facilitating and supervising such inspections. Because additional review sessions will require staff time and supervision, the District will require advance payment for any further inspection of the materials.

Based on your estimate that additional review time may exceed 20 hours, the District anticipates costs associated with staff supervision and coordination. Once the District determines the appropriate staffing and estimated time involved, we will provide you with a written estimate of the anticipated cost. Further access to the materials will not be scheduled until payment is received. We will cancel the sessions scheduled at Bailey Hill next week until we have the estimate ready to share and then work to find mutual times and under District supervision.

Please also note that the curriculum materials you are requesting to inspect are protected by federal copyright law. While the District may permit inspection of copyrighted materials, as you know, it may not permit copying or reproduction of those materials. Accordingly, during any future inspection sessions, the District will not permit copying, photographing, scanning, recording, transcription, or note-taking of the materials. No recording devices, including phones, cameras, laptops, or written materials for note-taking, will be permitted during the inspection.

If you wish to proceed, please notify the District in writing and we will provide you with the estimated cost and next steps.

You have the right to appeal any fee determination or denial related to this request pursuant to Oregon public records law.

Sincerely,
Public Records Office
Eugene School District 4J

Three things I noticed here:

1. The district is arguing that taking notes on a book violates federal copyright law. This doesn’t make sense.

2. The district insists that I be supervised while reading the health curriculum, and then uses that insistence to justify charging fees. This position is undercut by the email I received yesterday from Human Kinetics, cheerfully offering to sell me a digital copy of Live Well’s sexual health module for $29.

3. The letter reframes my inspection request under ORS 336.465 as a public records request. I’m not sure they can do that, but even if they can, this means their note-taking ban runs afoul of ORS 192.318, which stipulates that “The custodian of any public records […] shall furnish proper and reasonable opportunities for inspection and examination of the records in the office of the custodian and reasonable facilities for making memoranda or abstracts therefrom.”

At the May 13 school board meeting, I told the board about the district’s interference with my research.

Historically, disputes over health curricula have focused on the moral framing and age-appropriateness of concepts, not whether they make logical sense. The district seems happy to accommodate an anxious dad who wants to skim for naughty words, but the supervision, fees, and ban on note-taking make analysis impossible.