Ullmann said she had called faculty members because she wanted to verify that school officials were addressing her concerns about the app. She said she initially had a “productive conversation” with the archdiocesan superintendent, but got pushback from administrators after she called faculty members to talk with them about Epic Books. When she pushed concerns about Epic Books, conversations broke down, and she was eventually encouraged to withdraw her children from Catholic schools. Ullmann said archdiocesan officials in Baltimore told her that the schools in the diocese have autonomy to choose books and select technological resources. ![]() The letter also offered to make available to parents data from their own students’ Epic reading logs, so that they could better understand what their children had been reading.īut while the school addressed concerns about Epic Books, Ullmann said she had a difficult time getting a hearing from archdiocesan officials - and that education officials didn’t seem to understand or empathize with her distress about the material available to her children. ![]() The school’s principal explained that “there is no way to adequately filter the content on Epic! without exerting extensive time and energy,” adding that “Epic! will not be used the remainder of this school year and we will await information from the Archdiocese for the 23/24 school year.” And because some of those books were labeled at early grade reading levels, they could be accessed by young school-age children, Ullmann said.Īn excerpt from “Some People Do,” a book available on the Epic Books app, and identified as written at a K-2 reading and grade level. She told The Pillar that the Epic digital library - curated through licensing agreements with publishers - included dozens of books about homosexuality and transgenderism, which she found inconsistent with Catholic doctrine on the subject. Ullmann said she was discouraged by what she found. But I downloaded the app and got a free trial so I could check it out.” Instead, she said I could pay for a subscription. “But she didn’t give me access to the product. ![]() I didn’t quite know what it was,” Ullmann told The Pillar. “I emailed the teacher, I asked for access to Epic. She said that when she checked classroom emails from earlier in the year, a teacher had once mentioned using Epic Books, but Ullmann hadn’t really given it much thought.īut in March, Ullmann and her husband decided they wanted to know what their daughter was reading.Īt first, they didn’t know how to access Epic’s library. Ullmann said she and her husband were concerned - they’d not heard of Epic Books, and they weren’t sure what kind of books were available through the program. Stephen’s School in Kingsville, Maryland. Rachel Ullmann, a Catholic school parent in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, heard her second-grade daughter talk this March about using the Epic Books digital library on tablets in her classroom at St. Some Catholic school parents have encouraged vigilance about the third-party apps used in Catholic schools, while the director of the USCCB’s education office told The Pillar that the texts and literature in Catholic schools should focus on forming students for Christian discipleship, with a focus on “what is true, good, and beautiful.”Īs parents raise concerns, Catholic schools and dioceses are left to decide how best to address controversial content embedded in the apps that some classrooms have come to rely on. ![]() And among other effects, pandemic-related closures accelerated the integration of new technologies and online instruction into Catholic classrooms.īut a shift to more online instruction has also meant an uptick in the use of third-party apps and online programs used by Catholic schools students.Īmid that rise, some parents and administrators are warning that an online digital library called Epic Books gives Catholic school children access to books that promote “gender ideology” and aim to “normalize” LGBT relationships. While students have long returned to their classrooms, the pandemic’s impact on Catholic education is still being unpacked.
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