As Banned Books week continues, some Missouri parents are still advocating for certain content to be left out of school libraries and classrooms.
Andy Wells is the President of the Missouri chapter of No Left Turn in Education. Wells is a father of five, three of whom are in school now. He's a supporter of the recent bill banning sexually explicit materials in schools. He said that along with sexual content, there are other gripes he has with subjects taught in schools.
"We believe in classical education. We believe that education should not be race-based. The ideology of CRT should not be in public schools," Wells said. "We believe parents are the priority when it comes to the education of the children. And they should have the priority over their child's education, not the state or federal government."
Wells said he "100% supported" state Senator Rick Bratton when he proposed the legislation banning sexual content, and rejected the idea that it's a book ban.
"Everybody keeps wanting to use this phrase 'banned books.' We are not trying to ban anything, unlike the Dr. Seuss books that they actually stopped printing," Wells said. "We're not trying to get these books to be stopped printed. They're absolutely appropriate for a certain age. We believe that sexually explicit material was not appropriate for minors."
While no books have ceased printing, certain books have been pulled from school library shelves in the wake of the new legislation.
Wells said the easiest first step was to start with graphic novels that show sexual activity. He said there is no place for that kind of content in a public school district.
KMOX asked him to respond to the opinions of librarians who spoke with us earlier in the week, who feel like the law is overreaching and that it should be up to parents to decide what materials their kids are looking at. He said it's a public library's responsibility to make sure books are age-appropriate.
"No child can go and grab a Playboy magazine out of a public library. Why? Because it's sexually explicit," he said. "Mon and dad do not have the time to go through and look at every single book in the library."
Hear the full interview with Andy Wells on book bans and the new Missouri law:
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