Senate Bill 13 | Effective: 9-1-25 |
Senate Author: Paxton et al. | Senate Committee: Education K-16 |
House Sponsor: Buckley et al. | House Committee: Public Education |
Senate Bill 13 amends the Education Code to set out provisions relating to public school library standards, parental rights and access to public school library materials and catalogs, and the establishment of local school library advisory councils. Among other provisions, the bill does the following:
- entitles a parent to access any written records of a public school district relating to school library materials the parent's child obtains from a school library;
- requires the school library collection development policy adopted by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission to prohibit the possession, acquisition, and purchase of library material containing indecent content or profane content or library material that refers a person to a website containing any content that is prohibited under the school library standards, including by use of a link or QR code;
- requires a public school district or open-enrollment charter school to adopt procedures that provide for a parent of a child enrolled in the district or charter school to access the catalog of available library materials at each school library in the district or charter school and submit to the district or charter school a list of library materials that the parent's child may not be allowed to check out or otherwise access for use outside of the school library;
- requires each district and charter school that uses a learning management system or an online learning portal to provide, through the system or portal, to each parent of a child enrolled in the district or charter school a record of each time the parent's child checks out or otherwise uses outside the school library a library material;
- authorizes each district's board of trustees to establish a local school library advisory council to assist the district in ensuring that local community values are reflected in each school library catalog in the district and requires a district to do so if the parents of at least 10 percent of the students enrolled in the district or 50 or more parents of students enrolled in the district, whichever is fewer, present to the board a petition to establish such a council;
- requires a district's board of trustees to adopt a policy for the acquisition of library materials that, among other criteria, requires board approval for materials donated to or procured by a school library in the district; and
- establishes a process through which a parent of or person standing in parental relation to a student enrolled in a district, a person employed by the district, or a person residing in the district may submit a challenge or appeal regarding library materials.