Humble ISD trustees approved a change to the rules stipulating how the district’s School Library Advisory Council approves certain materials, a move that should streamline the process for committee members and librarians.
The details
Trustees approved the measure during the board’s Oct. 20 meeting.
According to the policy update, recommendations from the SLAC are no longer required when library materials are not subject to any pending challenge, have already been approved by the board, or are being reordered due to new ISBN numbers resulting from rebinding or changes to book covers.
Trustee Oscar Silva, who requested that the item be put on the Oct. 20 agenda, said he felt the change should be helpful to school librarians throughout the district.
“We have books that are already on the shelves—I think last month I used the example of Goodnight Moon—and if a library already has Goodnight Moon in paperback and they wanted it in hard back, you had to go through the whole SLAC approval process,” Silva said. “That placed an extra burden on the SLAC. It added extra burden and wait time on the librarians. To me, it was just common sense to take that off both of their plates.”
Some context
The SLAC was established as part of Senate Bill 13, which passed in the 89th Texas Legislature earlier this year and expands parental rights to review and question instructional and library materials used in the district.
The bill allows districts to form local school library advisory councils if at least 50 parents or 10% of the parents in the district, whichever is less, sign a petition requesting a council. The councils must have at least five members, most of whom are parents. Members can make recommendations to add or remove books from a school’s library, according to the bill.
Any resident can submit complaints about books in a district’s library under SB 13.
In June, trustees voted to reduce the number of SLAC members from 21 to a minimum of seven.
