Booksology SB 13 does more than just require schools to remove such materials. This gives a school district’s board of trustees or a parent-led committee called the School Library Advisory Council (SLAC) the power to choose what materials are added to public school libraries. School districts can choose which method they take to oversee collection, but local parents can petition school districts that don’t choose the SLAC option to do so.
New Braunfels ISD has chosen to continue making decisions with the school board. This week’s announcement to close access to all middle and high school libraries comes amid an effort to eliminate materials that could stray from SB 13’s approved themes.
According to the school’s announcement,
literary activism
In addition to the news available, we also include tips and tools to combat censorship and other bookish activities.
The board directed a comprehensive review of the district’s collection, which includes more than 195,000 books and materials. The middle school has over 50,000 books. Books found to violate SB 13 will be removed from library collections. Secondary library services will be suspended during this review, but elementary school library services will not be suspended. NBISD administrators are allocating resources to expedite the review process and ensure secondary libraries are accessible to students again as soon as possible.
NBISD has not provided a framework for how to complete a comprehensive review of more than 50,000 books across the district’s secondary schools. The district also hasn’t given a timeline for when students will be able to use school libraries, which are funded by families’ tax dollars. NBISD’s decision to close the library to complete a review of materials based on vague language shows how quickly and easily public schools can, and continue to be, intimidated by far-right politics infiltrating communities across Texas.
The school already has a strong collections policy that outlines the types of materials to be acquired and where and how materials will be removed. SB 13 takes away the control the district has over the materials available to it. This bill introduces deliberate lies about the types of materials available in school libraries. Like other public school libraries, there is no such thing as “harmful material” in its collection. “Harmful content” is a subjective term, along with “obscene” and “profane” content. These are pointless and only cause panic and discord in the school district, while vast amounts of taxpayer money are being spent on these shams of major reviews.
In an update on the impact of SB 13 on NBISD, the district outlined how it handled implementation in September. This was before the decision was made to shut it down completely. District plans include:
- Books deemed to violate SB 13 will be removed pending further review. This is a ban on the book, regardless of whether the book is ultimately removed from the district. Again, there is no standard definition for any term in SB 13. This is open to political interpretation and creates a kind of chilling effect where books that could be interpreted as contrary to the law simply disappear.
- Allows parents to view all books their child has borrowed from the library. Because of this severe violation of student rights, students are less likely to borrow materials, and monitoring is of course important, especially as the materials are personal or sensitive. This is punitive and is intended to encourage students not to borrow materials from the library.
- Require all booksellers to comply with SB 13. That’s one of the problems with a previously passed law in Texas called the READER Act, which remains on hold following a lawsuit challenging its legality. It is not yet clear where and how vendors should follow the vague language and how to interpret which materials are appropriate and which are not (which is, of course, the point).
- Determine how the school board will review future book purchases. Of course, elected school board officials will strive to maintain their positions. This means that voting records for books admitted into school collections can either keep or lose their status. This does not address the fact that most school board members have no experience working in, operating, or managing library materials. This aims to further professionalize libraries. In Texas, school librarians are more than just licensed librarians. They are also certified educators with classroom experience.
This is the first, and certainly not the last, broad and overreaching way that Texas public agencies have responded to this bill and its sister bill, Senate Bill 12. Just two weeks ago, Leander Independent School District administrators asked educators to provide 40 books identified by artificial intelligence to comply with the law. Some of the titles were classic titles such as To Kill an Alabama Story. At the time of writing, all but four of these titles have been returned to shelves.
SB 13 is a bill that would strip local control from public schools across Texas and put the power over what books are available and available to students in the hands of politicians. The bill warns educators and librarians that despite their training, education, and field experience, they cannot do their jobs properly.
Similar things will begin to happen at more schools in Texas, as is currently happening in New Braunfels. The idea is to completely eliminate student access to the library.
The New Braunfels Board of Education’s next meeting is Nov. 10. Information about that meeting is available on the website, but readers are encouraged to start drafting a letter now to the school board detailing the decision to cut off access to secondary school libraries to implement a wholesale book ban. It’s also time to hold the state’s elected officials accountable. SB 13 is co-sponsored entirely by Republican senators, all of whom are listed here. Texans are being asked to not only tell these legislators what this bill does, but to reiterate that they know they are working for the people and that this law works in conjunction with SB12 to remove materials from public schools with which their party disagrees. This is not about protection. It’s about eradication.
What you can do if you have local advocates for the right to read is to keep an eye on your library catalogue. What books will quietly disappear from our collections in the coming weeks? One way to do this is to collect some of the most commonly banned books from the past year, see if they are currently in NBISD’s secondary library collections, and consider monitoring their status through library closures.
Are there any other meaningful actions? Write a letter supporting your school’s library or library staff to these individuals or to the board itself. SB 13 aims to make library workers feel like criminals and further deprofessionalize the field.
Read more about the dangerous status quo being set by SB 13 at the Texas Free Reading Project.
