{"id":115736,"date":"2025-08-03T13:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T13:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/115736\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T13:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T13:49:08","slug":"florida-flags-divisive-platform-used-to-catalog-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/115736\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida flags ‘divisive’ platform used to catalog books"},"content":{"rendered":"

An online reading platform used by school districts to comply with Florida book laws<\/a> is now under fire by the state\u2019s top education official who accused it, without providing specifics, of trying to \u201cpush an ideology\u201d and \u201csubvert parental rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas sent a letter to districts on July 23, warning that the Beanstack platform \u201cprovides access to material that is not age or developmentally appropriate for students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beanstack is used by more than 40 Florida school districts \u2014 including some of its largest, among them Orange County Public Schools and Broward County Public Schools \u2014 to catalog books in classroom libraries, log the time students spend reading and offer parents a way to see what titles are available in their children\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n

The company says no one can access materials through the platform, however. They can only read the titles of available books or take part in reading challenges. Still, Kamoutas\u2019 letter, which he told superintendents to share with parents, prompted at least two school districts to suspend their Beanstack accounts and others to assure parents there was nothing inappropriate available through the platform.<\/p>\n

Kamoutsas wrote that any district using Beanstack was \u201cnow on notice\u201d and urged districts to review their use of the platform for violations of Florida law.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeanstack\u2019s attempt to push an ideology, subvert parental rights in education and ignore Florida policy is divisive and problematic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Education did not respond to questions seeking specific examples of what Kamoutsas found objectionable.<\/p>\n

Felix Brandon Lloyd, Beanstack\u2019s CEO, wrote in an email that the company did its own investigation and determined that the incident it thinks prompted Florida\u2019s letter \u2014 which he declined to provide information about \u2014 did not involve any Florida school districts\u2019 Beanstack accounts.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo our knowledge, no Florida public education institution provides access to materials not deemed by state laws to be age or developmentally appropriate for students through Beanstack,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Michael Ollendorff, a spokesperson for Orange County Public Schools, said Beanstack only shows book titles, author names and library book numbers. OCPS has used it since 2019 and increased its use in 2022 when a new state law required districts to review and catalog books in teachers\u2019 classroom collections, not just those in school media centers.<\/p>\n

In a subsequent message to school superintendents, Kamoutsas asked them to send his letter about Beanstack to all public school parents.<\/p>\n

In Palm Beach County, parents got an email that read, \u201cIt is important to note that the School District of Palm Beach County does not use this platform, and we are sharing this letter at the direction of the Florida Department of Education.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Orange, the district shared the letter and later told staff that it will continue in the coming year to use Beanstack to log minutes for reading challenges and to catalog classroom libraries.<\/p>\n

The Osceola County school district told parents in its message July 24 that it hadn\u2019t violated any Florida law by using Beanstack, but also said it would suspend access to the program temporarily.<\/p>\n

Broward schools did the same, Beanstack said in a social media post. The district\u2019s webpages referencing Beanstack led to error messages on Friday.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Vanos, an Orange County School Board member who has children in Orange\u2019s public schools,\u00a0said the commissioner\u2019s letter was \u201caggressive\u201d and \u201cunnecessary,\u201d adding that she had \u201creal questions\u201d about whether the state knew what Beanstack actually was.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would be happy to meet with any member of the (state) board of education and show them how we use Beanstack in Orange County, if that\u2019s what they need,\u201d Vanos said.<\/p>\n

Vanos said the state\u2019s letter adds to a \u201cculture of fear\u201d around books in Florida.<\/p>\n

New state laws passed in 2022 and 2023 put heightened scrutiny on school library books, requiring media specialists \u2014 teachers with additional library training \u2014 to review and approve all books in classroom collections and school libraries and to exclude those that feature pornography or \u201csexual conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

New state training for media specialists also warned them to \u201cerr on the side of caution\u201d when approving books<\/a> and that they can face criminal penalties and lose their teaching certificates if they approve inappropriate books.<\/p>\n

Last year, Florida led the country in school book bans with 4,561 instances in the state\u2019s public schools, according to a report by free-speech group PEN America.<\/p>\n

Library media specialists have had to navigate a confusing set of hurdles since Florida began passing these laws, said Kasey Meehan, the group\u2019s Freedom to Read program director.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s letter contains \u201cchilling language\u201d that adds to those hurdles but also makes an \u201cabsurd\u201d charge against Beanstack, she said.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s criticism of Beanstack comes as the education department awarded a four-year, $15.6 million contract to Trinity Education Group, a Maryland-based education technology firm, in 2024 to develop a state-sponsored system to catalog and object to library materials.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear when the state\u2019s school library book catalog could roll out to Florida school districts or how it would impact districts\u2019 existing platforms, such as Beanstack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An online reading platform used by school districts to comply with Florida book laws is now under fire…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":115737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,407,171,1370,728,50,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-115736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114965155969288966","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}