Gilbert police investigating teacher's book assignment at Williams Field High

By Tom Blodgett
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The Gilbert Police Department has opened an investigation in connection with a book assignment in a college-level literature class at Williams Field High School.

Gilbert Police confirmed a police report had been filed related to the assignment, which came from Williams Field teacher Brittany O'Neill to her Multicultural Literature class.

The class is an elective offered for dual enrollment with Chandler-Gilbert Community College. The book is "Homegoing" from Ghanian-American author Yaa Gyasi.

However, Gilbert Police spokesperson Officer Levi Leyba declined further comment as the investigation is active.

Sources told the Gilbert Independent an officer came to the high school Sept. 19 and requested to speak to O'Neill in private, but it is unclear if that interview then happened.

Higley Unfied School District confirmed a police investigation is under way and that it was related to the book assignment. However, spokesperson Jessica Bautista said Monday the district had no further information on the complaint and the district also was requesting to see the complaint.

Calls to officials from the Higley Education Association, which represents district teachers, were unreturned, but sources said the association was called into the situation when police came to the school to interview O'Neill.

Gilbert Police previously had declined to file a report when parent Charles Seal-Villafranca tried to do so, as detailed in an email from a department employee to Williams Field's school resource officer, Tyler Vancil.

Villafranca told the district's governing board Aug. 27 the book had sexually explicit content but that he had never given permission for his child to receive the book.

The district has backed O'Neill as following district policy in the assignment of the book, and CGCC has approved the book as appropriate for the course and said it backs O'Neill in having the academic freedom to teach that book in its course.

We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert

tblodgett@iniusa.org

Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.

Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism. 

Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.  

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).