Texas schools will see library updates as Senate Bill 13 becomes law, giving parents more access and input on reading materials.<\/p>\n
TEXAS, USA \u2014 Parents across Texas will start to see changes in school libraries under Senate Bill 13, which is now law. The bill gives families more access to library catalogs and more say in what their children are reading.<\/p>\n
Ector County ISD Director of Digital Learning Jessica Dominguez said the district was already prepared.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been no big change for us. We\u2019ve already had a process in place. The only big change that we had to think about and prepare for was the 30-day review process,\u201d Dominguez said.<\/p>\n
For ECISD, the biggest shift is that the school board, not staff, will now have the final say on new books.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only big piece is that the school board will have to approve all books that are new to the district. So yes, so we had to talk about. When are they going to do that? How often are we going to do it?\u201d Dominguez said.<\/p>\n
The law also makes catalogs public and allows parents to block certain titles for their children. ECISD said the tool is already built into its online system, and if a student tries to check out a restricted book, the librarian is notified.<\/p>\n
Nationwide, books like All Boys Aren\u2019t Blue, Gender Queer, and The Bluest Eye are among the most frequently challenged for explicit content or sensitive themes. Even classics like\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird have been questioned for racial language.<\/p>\n
On Facebook, some parents expressed concerns about how the law might work. One asked, \u201cIf a history book was called inappropriate, would it also be banned?\u201d Another worried about staffing, writing, \u201cAre schools hiring more library aides, or just adding to teachers\u2019 plates?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dominguez encourages parents to stay involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cParents do have the option to call their school and talk to their librarian… and there is a feature in our library management system where parents can give a list of books that they don\u2019t want their child to check out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
ECISD has also launched a district library page where families can browse the catalog, see which books are under review and ask questions directly. Dominguez said the page is meant to make the process more transparent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas schools will see library updates as Senate Bill 13 becomes law, giving parents more access and input…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":198651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-198650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115144183275839386","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}