Textbooks Removed From Classrooms

On Monday, Loudoun County Public Schools denied approval for two textbooks published by Five Ponds Press and used in fourth and fifth grade classrooms. “Our Virginia: Past and Present” and “Our America to 1865” were found by the Virginia Department of Education to contain factual errors.

Loudoun County discontinued use of the book back in October when the inaccuracies were first brought to light. While under review by the State, Loudoun County did bring the book back into the classrooms to be used as a critical reading exercise.

“It’s a good way to show students that adults make mistakes too and that we should always check our sources,” said Wayde Byard, spokesman for Loudoun County Schools.

Last week when the Board of Education withdrew approval of the book, Loudoun County Schools adhered to the guidelines, packed up the books and sent them back to the warehouse. Sharon Ackerman, assistant superintendent for instruction, said this decision will not affect learning in the classroom.

“The Five Ponds Press book is a supplementary text, not the primary textbook for the grade four social science program,” Ackerman said. “Thus, the removal of this text will not cause disruption to the instructional program.”

Loudoun County Public Schools first removed the books from classrooms in October “because of its dubious claim about thousands of black soldiers fighting for the South during the Civil War,” according to a statement released at the time.

“There simply is no evidence of that,” Byard said. 

Five Ponds Press is aware of the list of corrections and is making appropriate changes to the text.

While we all want to ensure that our students are presented with factual historical information, there is possibly a good lesson to be learned in all of this.

“There is an explosion of information in our society. We need to teach students to be critical readers and thinkers and learn how to discern what is true and what is not,” Byard said.