Denton ISD has moved quickly to create a new state-mandated council to review and recommend new library materials to the school board.
The board voted to create a School Library Advisory Council earlier this summer to comply with Senate Bill 13, a law that requires school boards to approve the purchase of new material. After a post-COVID wave of book challenges and bans in public schools across the state and the country, Texas lawmakers legally removed the responsibility for these purchases from librarians.
Lisa Stultz, Denton ISD’s coordinator of library services, led a workshop at the Tuesday board meeting about the new advisory council.
What the council does
By state law, the advisory councils helps the district ensure that local community values are reflected in campus library catalogs. The district has to consider the council’s recommendations before adding materials to a school catalog, removing material from a school library catalog that have been challenged, or changing policies that govern library catalogs.
By the district’s local policy, the council will review and recommend a list of materials for the district to buy or accept donated materials to add to library catalogs. The council will also consider formal challenges to materials and make a recommendation to the board.
The school board will ultimately make the decision to adopt or reject materials.
Parents get a deciding role
“The majority of the voting members of the council must be persons who are parents of students who are enrolled in the district, [but] who are not employed by the district,” Stultz said.
The council has to have at least five voting members, all of whom will be appointed by the school board. One of the voting members will be the chair of the council. School board members can appoint one or more nonvoting members to the council, as well. Stultz said the nonvoting members can be teachers, district librarians, certified school counselors working for the district, Denton ISD administrators, or members of the business community or clergy.
Stultz said the council will go through orientation and training in September, and then will meet at least twice a year, although they can call additional meetings as needed. The council will meet in October and December, then again in March and May.
“[Stultz] has worked very hard in these last several weeks to prepare the timeline,” Superintendent Susannah O’Bara said. “She went over it very quickly like it isn’t a big deal, but she’s worked very hard to consider the work backdate so that it doesn’t delay or create obstacles for our librarians so they function as they need to.”