The Texas Educational Agency (TEA) released its model policy for public schools selecting books for school libraries.
TEA Commissioner Mike Morath announced the guidelines in a letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
“There have been several instances recently of inappropriate materials being found in school libraries,” Morath said. “… this model local school board policy will serve as a helpful guide to school boards as they create the policies for their school district libraries.”
The new model policy states that parents should have a role in selecting books. The TEA says districts should make new book selections readily available for parents to review. School librarians or staff should be “encouraged” to ask parents whether their children are permitted to read a book.
The new guidelines also suggest that school boards have final approval of all new books and that they should create a committee to review books if parents file a formal “request for reconsideration.”
The policy also reminds school districts that handing out obscene or inappropriate materials to minors violates state law.
The policy change results from a letter Governor Abbott sent to state education agencies in November of last year. Abbott requested the development of statewide standards to keep pornographic material out of schools.
The TEA sought input from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and the State Board of Education Chair in formulating the new plan.
Abbott is currently seeking his third term as Texas governor. Last November, he told educators to determine how much obscene material was present in their schools and remove any found. In his November 10, 2021 letter, Abbott stated that providing pornographic materials to minors would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Abbott’s directive cited an incident at Keller Independent School District in Keller, Texas, that gained national media attention. Parents in Keller pressured school officials to remove the book Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe from the high school library, objecting to panels in the graphic novel that has illustrations of sex acts.
While school boards may use the new TEA model to adapt their current procedures for book selection, they are not required to adopt the suggestions.
School districts are independent governmental agencies run by locally elected trustees. Most school districts already have existing policies for selecting school library books. Therefore, it is not immediately clear how the TEA guidelines will impact Texas schools.
Barry Perez, a spokesperson for the San Antonio area’s Northside Independent School District, the state’s fourth-largest district, told the Texas Tribune that school officials are unsure how the guidelines will affect them. He added that the district already has long-standing protocols for handling concerns about books and instructional materials.
“We will continue to follow these protocols and address any specific concerns on a case by case basis and with thoughtful consideration of students’ interests, age, maturity, and reading skills level,” Perez said.