BALTIMORE, Md. – Officials in the Baltimore school district are taking heat from local activists and city council members for trashing Dumpsters full of usable books as part of a local school closing.

Teachers and community members were flabbergasted after Heritage High School principal Stephanie Farmer ordered staff to “recycle” every book at the school copyrighted before 1999 by tossing them in a massive dumpster at the now closed campus, WBALTV reports.

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Terra Café owner Terence Dickson and an associate went to the school this week after learning of the book dump through social media and discovered thousands of books – from math texts to classic literary works from John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemmingway and William Shakespeare – set to be tossed out, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Others report many of the books were published after 2000, and appeared to be in new or like new condition.

Dickson and his associate, Sharron Childs, attempted to collect some of the books to distribute to community centers, schools and other places that could use them, but were reportedly turned away by officials.

The two were also heckled for inquiring about the books, with officials demanding to know their intentions for the books and they were eventually escorted out of the building, the Sun reports.

“I didn’t know Shakespeare got old,” Dickson told WBALTV. “I didn’t know algebra changed.”

“Our intentions with the books were to recycle the books into the communities,” Childs said.

The two contacted city councilman Carl Stokes, who immediately took school officials to task for the book dump.

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“These books, first of all, were in good shape and second of all, they’re not out of date,” Stokes said. “I was greatly disappointed that they were throwing them in the Dumpster, when there were people wanting to take them.

“I couldn’t believe it – that I had just watched a loader take a Dumpster full of books,” he said.

Stokes contacted school leaders, who told him the books were out of date, but the councilman said he recovered books that look brand new with relevant content.

“I still think two plus two equals four, and a balance sheet still needs to balance,” Stokes told the Sun. “Out of date for book companies means that they change the cover and resell the system another $1 million worth of books.”

“Photographs Dickson shared with The Baltimore Sun show recycle bins filled to the brim with books, including math textbooks such as algebra and accounting. The titles included ‘Hamlet,’ ‘The Meaning of the Constitution’ and ‘When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore.’ He even found a record album of ‘The Wiz,’” the Sun reports.

“At least one textbook with several copies in the recycle bin was published in 2011, The Sun found.”

District and school officials refused to discuss the book dump in person, and only answered media inquiries by email.

“They could not tell us where the books were now or would not tell us why they wouldn’t let Dickson and Childs take them in the first place,” WBALTV reports. “Teachers at the school said there are still plenty of books inside that have not been thrown out.”

The president of the district’s administrative union told WBALTV a disgruntled school employee dumped newer books in with other older texts to make the principal and school district look bad, but Childs, Dickson and Stokes aren’t buying the story.

“It would be physically impossible for one person to discard that many books,” Childs said.

The episode also drew scorn from the Maryland Reporter, which issued an op-ed by Barry Rascovar condemning the “modern-day way of conducting an old-fashioned book-burning.”

Rascovar wrote:

Baltimore is a struggling, aging city with serious poverty, employment, housing and crime issues that urgently need addressing. It also has a school system filled with too many unthinking placeholders more concerned about their paychecks than the basics of education.

Humanity suffers when there are intentional book-burnings like this one. Ignorance flourishes when bureaucrats fail to open their eyes to simple, creative solutions that would benefit society.

What happened at Heritage High School is unacceptable. Baltimore City’s political leaders need to act.

Either the school system becomes a partner in educating and uplifting the city’s communities or it becomes an enemy of the people.

City councilman Brandon Scott, who also called school officials when notified about the book dump, expressed a similar position to The Baltimore Sun.

“In light of all that’s been going on in Baltimore over the last few months, we have to realize that it’s all hands on deck,” Scott said.

“And when we have people from the business community who realize that and want to take books that aren’t being used anymore to help other children, they shouldn’t have to call me to do so.”