Kirkwood, Missouri - After four years of relentless advocacy from Kirkwood for Educational Integrity (KFEI), a community group, Kirkwood School District (KSD) has finally admitted that it has been providing students with private access to inappropriate material on their school computers. However, Kirkwood’s newest communications continue to mislead and undermine parents.

Thomas More Society has sent a formal demand letter to KSD after learning that the District’s recent purported changes to its implementation of the Sora digital reading app have not taken place, and the District’srepresentations to parents about the changes are misleading. While KSD said parents will now have to “add access” to Sora reading collections with sexually explicit and inappropriate materials on Sora, no such limits have been imposed.  

“Kirkwood School District has finally admitted what concerned parents at KFEI have been pointing out for years: they have been providing children with unrestricted access to abhorrent content since 2022,” said Mary Catherine Martin, Senior Counsel at Thomas More Society. “Despite that admission, they have yet to actually fix it. And even worse, they have informed parents that it’s been taken care of, which will lead concerned parents to let down their guard.”

“It’s hard to believe, but parents and students in Kirkwood are in a worse position than they were last fall,” Martin added.

In its letter, Thomas More Society reminded KSD that it previously committed to improving parental notice of the content available through their Sora digital reading app and that, under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, parents must be given accurate, complete information to make informed decisions about their children’s exposure to sensitive content.

The letter calls on Kirkwood School District to:

Immediately implement its promised requirement that parents must affirmatively opt in before students can access public library materials through Sora;

Impose similar restrictions on the other collections available through Sora, including the Missouri MOREnet collection, and address unfiltered internet access through Sora; and

Provide parents with full, truthful notice of all sources of offensive, inappropriate, or illegal content accessible to students through the app.

“After years of warnings and now two formal letters, KSD cannot claim confusion,” continued Martin. “Parents deserve honesty and real control over what their children are exposed to at school.”

The letter cites multiple examples (age restricted link) of sexually explicit books available to elementary, middle school, and high school students through MOREnet, a state library catalog that will remain freely accessible to students even after proposed changes. It also identifies live internet links within books that bypass the District’s legally required content filters. In one example, students who click a link embedded in a book are taken directly to graphic sexual content online—content that would otherwise be blocked and subject students to discipline if accessed independently.

“As parents, our first responsibility is to protect our children,” KFEI leaders said in a statement. “We are deeply disturbed that the district has continued to allow students access to sexually explicit material while brushing aside the very real concerns of families. Parental rights do not end at the school drop off line. KSD refuses to be transparent and honest with parents and their continued mishandling of this situation is appalling.”

Thomas More Society and KFEI are hopeful that Kirkwood’s admission of what they have been exposing children to over the past four years will alert parents in other school districts to question what their children are being provided on their school devices.

“Parents throughout the State of Missouri are in the dark about what their children have access to on their school computers,” said Martin. “We hope that Kirkwood’s admission that they have been using the Sora app to provide inappropriate materials will get the attention of the Secretary of State of Missouri and other state leaders who continue to fund and administer MOREnet and the Sora app”.

Thomas More Society has requested a response from Kirkwood School District by February 19, 2026.