AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) set new book standards that school districts must follow regarding "sexually explicit" content in school libraries.
The new standards are in response to House Bill 900, which was set to go into effect on Sept. 1. However, a district judge put the law's implementation on hold pending a review after a group of booksellers and library associations sued several state agencies over HB 900.
The SBOE approved the new standards on Wednesday, and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission adopted them on Thursday.
Here is what the standards do: they require each Texas public school district board approve what is called a "library collection development policy," that prohibits possessing or purchasing "sexually explicit material." It will also include a process that determines if students can access materials that are "sexually relevant," and must have a way for parents to access the school's library catalog.
The standards dictate a school district's collection policy should be reviewed at least every three years and updated as necessary.
The standards come in response to House Bill 900 which is authored by State Rep. Jared Patterson. Under HB 900, booksellers wouldn't be allowed to sell any books deemed sexually explicit to school districts, and districts wouldn't be allowed to buy from booksellers that don't use state-mandated ratings to classify the books.
Valerie Koehler, who owns a bookstore in Houston, worries about how the standards will affect her business.
"A lot of the school districts in the greater Houston area have stopped buying books for their libraries," Koehler said. "And we have definitely felt that. We have definitely felt that here in the shop, and if the law continues and these vague standards, I don't know, will they buy anything?"
Koehler owns Houston's Blue Willow Bookshop. She joined forces with Austin bookstore Bookpeople to file a lawsuit against state agencies. But Patterson is convinced parents should be the ultimate decision-makers when it comes to their children's education.
"We have for the first time ever mandatory collection development standards that will be put in place across the board and all 1000 plus school districts in the state of Texas as bare minimum standards to put parents in their rightful place at the top of the pyramid and to ultimately remove this explicit content from our public schools," Patterson said.
The next deadline coming up under the new law is in April 2024 where vendors will have to provide an initial list of materials they rate sexually explicit or relevant to the Texas Education Agency.