GREAT BARRINGTON — A report commissioned by school officials has revealed that it was a night custodian at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School who complained to police about the contents of a book in an eighth grade classroom.
That custodian, Adam Yorke, is not employed by the Berkshire Hills Regional School District as of Thursday.
Yorke, who began working for the district on Oct. 24, 2022, had taken photos of certain pages of the illustrated novel, “Gender Queer,” in late November and brought them to police on Dec. 8 — the day a police officer searched the classroom for a book, according to the report by Kevin M. Kinne of law firm Cohen Kinne Valicenti & Cook.
The report also alleges that Yorke had made complaints in the past, saying that the teacher “was teaching kids how to have gay sex,” though there was no evidence that was the case, Kinne wrote.
And Kinne found no evidence to support any of Yorke’s claims against the teacher. The findings, however, show evidence to suggest Yorke may have been a disgruntled employee.
Yorke could not be reached for comment.
Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon made the report public on Friday. It is separate from another investigation underway by the town into police actions that day. Dillon could not be immediately reached for comment.
Kinne’s 68-page report follows debate over what is appropriate reading for young students, as well as community outrage that a police officer would enter a classroom in response to a complaint about educational materials or allegations against a teacher.
After getting permission from Dillon on the afternoon of Dec. 8, Police Chief Paul Storti sent Officer Joseph O’Brien into the classroom — in plain clothes — that day to find the book to determine whether it contained pornography as Yorke alleged.
O’Brien never found the book — which the teacher kept in the classroom as a supplemental book and has to be checked out with her permission — but the search itself set off a firestorm about police involvement in education. The schools have their own established process for handling book challenges, but those do not offer anonymity.
Berkshire District Attorney Timothy Shugrue soon shut down a possible criminal probe concerning potentially “obscene” material and said concerns would be kicked back to the district to deal with. But Kinne's report reveals that Shugrue had concerns.
In an email to Assistant District Attorney Andrew Giarolo the afternoon of Dec. 8, Shugrue said that “Gender Queer” should not be in the school.
“I don’t care if it’s artistic — if it depicts graphic sexual illustrations it has no place for minors to view and observe — do we allow heterosexual illustrated sexual books in the library? I do not think so.”
Until now, only the police knew Yorke’s identity. The teacher had asked that it be revealed out of concern for her safety and that of her students in the larger Gay Straight Alliance club, for which she is an adviser.
The teacher also has asked that her name not be published for fear she would be a target. Her attorney, Howard Cooper, said she still continues to ask that her name be withheld. Cooper said he is still digesting the report and is not ready to comment about whether the teacher feels safe enough to return to school.
He commended Kinne's work, and said that right now he is most focused on "the number of established [school] policies and procedures that were ignored which led to what was obviously an extraordinarily traumatic experience for the teacher."