After hiatus, Berkeley County returns access to virtual library for high school students

When students and teachers in the Berkeley County School District turned on their devices to log into the DISCUS website last February, some thought they were facing an IT glitch.

 

DISCUS,  the state-provided, free online library of encyclopedias, journals, and research tools, had vanished.

 

Teachers filed help desk tickets, only to learn it wasn’t a mistake: the school district had turned off access.

 

No email, no warning, and, at the time, no explanation.

 

It wasn’t until six months later, a day before classes resumed in August, that limited access to DISCUS was restored, but only to high schoolers.

 

What some teachers say is the lack of transparency has them frustrated.

 

“At first, the teachers thought that it was an IT issue, like it was a broken link,” said Kathleen Low, president of the Berkeley County Education Association. “IT was like, no, it’s just not available anymore. A lot of these folks were in the middle of units, packaging lesson plans, so wherever they were in planning was pretty much dead in the water.”

 

Low said teachers were left scrambling for alternatives. Worse, she said, “We have not received any emails from the district saying that DISCUS was taken down… or communicated that it was back.”

 

WHAT IS DISCUS?

Short for Digital Information for South Carolina Users, DISCUS, funded by state tax dollars, has been an online research backbone for more than 25 years.

 

Operated by the South Carolina State Library, the database is free to school districts and provides students with reference materials; from newspapers and magazines to e-books to academic journals.

 

“It’s essentially a virtual encyclopedia that has research-level capacity,” Low said. “This is really stripping away the confidence of teachers. To take something away that is free, vetted, and statewide makes no sense.”

 

Teachers say the digital library can also help struggling readers by offering adaptive and immersive reading tools. Low stressed that it’s the younger students, those struggling most with literacy, who need DISCUS the most.

 

DISCUS DISTRICT DECISION

When asked why access to DISCUS was halted, leaders from the Berkeley County School District said the move was temporary, as they were addressing content concerns within its database.

 

“In response to concerns raised by district parents regarding the age-appropriateness of content available to students through the DISCUS platform, the district has temporarily restricted access to teachers only,” said Katie Tanner, Berkeley County School District’s chief strategy and engagement officer, back in February.

 

She added last month that the move was made in compliance with South Carolina’s Regulation 43-170, which standardizes the process for how school districts review complaints and concerns about instructional materials. The law also gives districts guidance on evaluating what may be suitable for students and what may not.

 

With the new school year underway, the district has since restored access to DISCUS, but it’s limited access, only available for older students.

 

“DISCUS will be enabled on high school student devices,” Tanner wrote to school leaders. “The district is continuing to vet alternative options for K-8 students to ensure age-appropriate access.”

 

CENSORSHIP OR COMPLIANCE?

To civil liberties advocates, the explanations fall short.

 

“Students have a right to access information,” said Paul Bowers, communications director for the ACLU of South Carolina. “More than six months after shutting off DISCUS access, Berkeley County School District officials have not given a clear rationale for this instance of censorship. Vague hand-waving about ‘age-appropriateness’ is not a sufficient reason to block tens of thousands of students’ access to an important and long-standing educational resource.”

 

Bowers compared the removal to “taking the encyclopedias off the shelf.” He also noted that Berkeley is the only district in the state to block DISCUS in its 25-year history.

For teachers like Low, the deeper issue is trust.

 

“It’s just unfortunate that it seems to be too difficult of a task to engage in communication with the people who are just trying to get up in the morning and teach,” she said.

 

With high school access restored, but availability for elementary and middle students still uncertain, parents, teachers, and advocates continue pressing for clarity.

 

As Low put it, “We keep hearing that a kid’s potential shouldn’t be defined by their zip code. But isn’t that exactly what this is?”