Humble ISD votes to reduce size of district's school library advisory council

Humble ISD trustees approved a change to the district’s school library advisory council that will reduce the number of members from 21 to a minimum of seven.

The details

Trustees approved the measure during the June 16 special board meeting.

Board President Mike Grabowski said the change was being recommended after board members received feedback suggesting 21 members was too large of a group to manage.

“Twenty-one is a very difficult number to manage, and the feedback that I was getting a lot is there were so many opinions that there was little time left to discuss the books,” Grabowski said. “I think with seven, your job gets greatly simplified.”

A closer look

The change to the SLAC is coming after trustees initially established the committee in October.

The SLAC provides recommendations related to adding new library materials, reviewing materials following a formal challenge, updating policies or guidelines related to library collections, and additional duties related to school libraries.

Trustee Elizabeth Shaw said the committee is still a work in progress, noting district officials are still determining what methods work best.

“It's going to be a little bit of give and take and learning, and I think our staff at Humble ISD has done a really good job of doing that,” Shaw said.

Trustee Chris Parker said she believed the smaller committee would be more effective.

“Working with 21 [members] would be hard,” Parker said. “It would be hard to manage—hard to navigate.”

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.