Superintendent Browning Apparently Lies At Recent School Board Meeting

In a recent Pasco County School Board Meeting held on January 16, 2024, Superintendent Kurt S. Browning made a false statement regarding a challenged book.

During the meeting, Browning addressed a public comment made by Pasco resident Rebecca Yuengling. In his statement about the availability of the challenged book, The Letter Q, Mr. Browning informed Mrs. Yuengling that “it is checked out to a student who’s parents have opted in,” and that the parent “has allowed that child to check that book out.”

The Tampa Bay Times reports the facts differently. A February 6, 2024 article by Jeffrey S. Solochek states that Gulf Middle School copy of The Letter Q has “never been checked out.” When I reached out to Mr. Solochek about the the discrepancy between his article and Superintendent Browning’s statement, he investigated further and informed me that he “confirmed with the school district that the story is accurate.” Indeed, “the book had not been checked out by anyone. The superintendent’s comment was not correct.”

It is unclear why Browning made this false statement about the book being checked out to a student at Gulf Middle School. One might speculate that Superintendent Browning was misinformed at the time. However, one might also suspect that he is politicizing the issue and trying to make Rebecca Yuengling look irrational because she is challenging a book with which more “reasonable” parents take no issue.

In the same School Board Meeting, Mrs. Yuengling points out that The Letter Q is not appropriate for middle schoolers because it violates current Florida Law. The Letter Q references “The Trevor Project“, which is an online website where middle schoolers can join an anonymous online forum to “talk about their sexuality”.

Notably, the website informs vistors to press the “escape” key three times to quickly leave the site.

The site has also been found to contain a Pandora’s Box of “sexually perverse content, aggressive gender-reassignment referrals, [and] adults encouraging minors to hide their transitions from their parents and many troubled kids in need of psychological counseling.” This last point probably explains the above screenshot.

I have reached out to Mr. Browning for comment on his apparently false statement.

What do you think? Did Superintendent Browning lie? Is The Letter Q an appropriate book for middle schoolers?