A Dubuque Community Schools committee is recommending the removal of three books from the district’s curriculum after students raised concerns about their content.

The novels — “Of Mice and Men,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” — would be removed from the district’s required reading list for high school students due to their significant use of racial slurs. They still would be made available in school libraries.

Mark Burns, the district’s executive director of secondary education, said administrators are still in the process of meeting with school faculty to discuss the potential change but added that it is likely the books will not be part of curriculum starting next school year.

“The committee feels pretty strongly that this should happen,” Burns said. “The concerns are that there are racial slurs in the text that the students feel uncomfortable about.”

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” first published in 1960 and taught to ninth-grade students in the district, tells the story of a girl growing up in the Great Depression in a small town in Alabama, with plot elements that deal with racism and rape.

“Of Mice and Men,” first published in 1937 and also taught to ninth-grade students, follows two migrant field workers during the Great Depression and depicts characters using racist language.

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” first was published in 2007 and required reading by some 10th-grade teachers, is about a Native American teenager attending a nearly all-White public high school.

Burns said a committee of five teachers, including four English teachers, and four administrators — Burns, the district’s two high school principals and the district’s director of equity — first began reviewing the use of the books in class about two months ago after several concerns were raised by students.

Burns noted that these students were of a multitude of races and ethnicities who were reading the books and also hearing them read aloud in class.

“Students were uncomfortable that they were reading those racial slurs or hearing slurs read to them,” Burns said.

Burns said the district will work with teachers over the summer to select new reading material to replace the books.

As part of the review, Burns said, administrators also are compiling a list of equity considerations and rationale that the school district could use to determine which textbooks or novels could be allowed as required reading material in the future.

That list is expected to come before the Dubuque Community School Board by August to be incorporated into board policy that gives guidelines for reviewing and selecting instructional materials taught in the district.

“We’ve got a list of eight or nine points that people would consider when looking at equity and textbooks that are used,” Burns said.

Reached on Friday while traveling, Superintendent Stan Rheingans said he was aware of the proposed curriculum change but did not know enough details to comment.

Michelle Hunt, an English teacher at Hempstead High School, said she still is processing the district’s recommendation but added that the books that could be removed can provide useful lessons to students.

“When I teach a novel that deals with the ugliness of humanity, as most powerful novels do, we explore the merits of the text, literary, historical and social,” Hunt said. “It’s difficult to escape controversy in great literature, but something wonderful can happen when we explore those texts together.”

Burns said the district will continue to meet with and work with teachers to explore how equity and inclusion are implemented in course material.

“We want to gather teachers together over the course of the summer to work through this conversation,” he said.