The Denton ISD school board approved a policy this week to establish a school library advisory council to comply with Texas’ controversial Senate Bill 13.
State lawmakers passed what they referred to as a “parental rights” bill last month, requiring school boards to approve all library materials, both donated to the district or purchased by them, after a list of all the materials has been available for public review for at least 30 days.
The law allows districts to establish an advisory council to do the work and make recommendations to school boards and recommend policies and procedures for the acquisition of library materials. If a district doesn’t set up an advisory council, parents can petition for the district to establish one.
With an advisory council model, boards are required to consider the recommendations of the advisory group before adding or removing materials, or changing library guidelines or policies.
The advisory council composition will look like other internal committees assembled by the district. It will include district officials, library staff in this case, and parents, community members and students.
“We’re all about bringing in the community,” said Denton ISD general counsel Deron Robinson. “We want more people involved.”
The law follows several years of book bans in Texas schools, with some districts removing hundreds of titles from shelves after right-leaning advocacy groups, such as Moms for Liberty, attended school board meetings to read passages depicting sexual situations and relationships aloud. A national movement has targeted young adult books written by LGBTQ+ authors and writers of color, and books about the lives and experiences of LGBTQ+ and nonwhite characters.
In 2021, Texas lawmaker Matt Krause asked every state school district to report if any titles on a list of nearly 1,000 books were in their libraries.
Denton ISD’s library collection can be searched online by campus.
In Denton, advocates who challenged books sought school board seats, with most losing their bids.
School board members pointed out that books make their way onto campuses in different ways.
Board member Tanya Wright asked about school book fairs, some of which let students earn credit at the pop-up book sale.
“The book fair vendors will give, if you choose to read [a book fair title] and get a check [mark], then you can get additional ‘dollars’ of books,” she said. “Is there a way, with the SLAC, for our schools to still take advantage of that?”
Robinson said all donations will have to go through the district’s process, so if a student gets to select a bonus book as a reward for completing another book, it will be a title the board has approved.
Board member Patsy Sosa-Sanchez said reading materials are in classrooms.
“As a teacher, I get a lot of books donated to me,” she said. “Do I have to go through the same process?”
Lisa Thobodeaux, the district’s executive director of secondary curriculum, instruction and staff development, said the team working on the advisory council intends for all materials to go through the same process.
“In the last 10 days, we’ve been meeting with English coordinators for elementary and secondary [programs], reading through the bill and taking our current guidelines for classroom libraries and adopting them to meet these new rules,” Thibodeaux said. “So the short answer is yes, our teachers will have to be wearing the same sort of filtering, sort of thinking, and system as our librarians.
“A shortcut to that work is to ask our classroom teachers to ensure that the books in their classroom collections are already in our district libraries so we know they’ve been vetted and gone through the filtering system.”
Thibodeaux said the district is transitioning to a new system that increases the database about library materials so the staff has more information at hand. But there are limitations.
“As you know, what’s coming up every week, hundreds of them every year, [are books] that are of interest to our classrooms and our students,” she said. “So we will be taking on that work. Our librarians will be taking on so much more work.”
The advisory council will meet at least two times a year but can meet more often to comply with the law. Board members can propose changes to the recommended list of materials before a vote.