'Utterly Disastrous' New Law Is Emptying School Library Shelves

Charlotte’s Web, the E.B. White children’s classic that is often a child’s first introduction to the deeper and intangible concepts of life, like the meaning of friendship and the sorrows of death, is pending approval from the Coppell Independent School District’s new Student Library Advisory Council (SLAC). The book, which has been a school library staple since it was first published in 1952, most likely already exists on Coppell school shelves and in its elementary classrooms, but because of a broad, new law that derails the typical school library book-buying process, a fresh copy of Charlotte’s Web now requires approval, and that won’t happen for several weeks.

Less than a month into the school year, Coppell ISD’s book approval list is already 37 pages long, filled with hundreds of titles just as innocent as Charlotte’s Web, and some with more challenging but crucial topics to inform older readers approaching voting age. Books like A Kid's Book About Dyslexia for elementary schools, or Death By Whoopee Cushion for middle schools, or Same Sex Marriage: Obergefell v. Hodges for high schools, are stuck in a literary prison holding cell, waiting for approval by the SLAC that Coppell has willingly formed without being petitioned.

Senate Bill 13, filed by North Texas Sen. Angela Paxton and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in late June, strips librarians of their book stock autonomy and places the responsibility of bookshelf content approval in the hands of school boards. The law requires the boards to meet twice a year to individually approve each book requested by librarians, of which there may be thousands. The bill claimed to ensure “obscene” content is not found in libraries, regardless of existing laws that keep inappropriate materials out of public schools.

The law also requires the creation of a SLAC, an advisory council comprised of community members, but only if 10% of student parents, or 50 parents total, whichever is fewer, petition the district, though most districts have chosen to create them anyway, which critics say is the direct result of a poorly written bill.

“We cannot be clear enough, this will be utterly disastrous,” said Laney Hawes, co-founder of Texas Freedom To Read Project. “It's impractical. It's burdensome. It's a quagmire. It's truly a maze. We have school districts that are talking about it at their board meetings, and some of them are saying, ‘Well, I think that we have to have a SLAC.’ But that's not true.”

In the case of Charlotte’s Web finding its way to the approval list despite being one of the most commonly read novels in elementary school, Hawes says that it’s simple library science; every variant of a book will have a different International Standard Book Number (ISBN), the commercial book identifier code for easy library organization. So a paperback version, an audiobook version, a Spanish version, even an anniversary version will all have a different ISBN, and each one now has to be approved, even if it’s the same book down to the letter. Hawes says this is just one example of egregious inconveniences created by a bill written without the consultation of actual librarians.

“That's an example, a perfect example in the law, of the fact that these people don't know how the legislators are going to enforce this, and they don’t know how book buying works,” she said. “They don't know the process. This just does not work.”

Schools Start Planning

So far, Denton, Plano and Coppell ISDs have approved a SLAC without being petitioned. Coppell ISD is still accepting applications from parents, students, teachers and other community members on its website. The district has set double the required number of meetings this school year for the council to attempt to work through the endless list of titles pending approval, but has not released dates.

The Dallas ISD board of trustees will take on the book approval process instead of a SLAC, while maintaining compliance with SB 13, but it has only set two dates for the job: one in October and another in February. The district has not released an updated list of titles pending approval, though the law requires them to have it posted at least 30 days before the final vote.

Hawes says there’s no feasible way to approve all books requested by every single school librarian in a district in just two meetings. There’s likely not a way to judge a book by any more than its cover within the given timeframe.

“Every single book, it doesn't matter what the book is, every book needs to be reviewed by the council and needs to be put online for 30 days for people to submit complaints about,” she said. “This is so ridiculous. You don't need these steps to hinder the process of getting books into your libraries. There are still guidelines and regulations. A SLAC adds what we feel is an insurmountable list of guidelines and timelines that are just going to make book buying nearly impossible.”

Confusion Persists

Hawes says school boards have elected to form a SLAC out of confusion and fear, regardless of the actual legal requirement, and conservative lawmakers sure aren’t helping clarify the situation. After the Killeen ISD board elected to approve library content themselves instead of forming a SLAC, Central Texas Rep. Hillary Hickland, who filed a number of her own obscenity bills, threatened to report the district to the Texas Education Agency and law enforcement.

“It appears that some local school districts are still having serious issues protecting children from obscenity,” Hickland wrote on X. “Our kids deserve safe classrooms, not graphic material. Here is my statement to ISDs that are still struggling to get this right.”

I’ll never understand adults who fight to expose other people’s kids to obscenity. pic.twitter.com/L0o8Q7vpQn

— Hillary Hickland (@HicklandHillary) August 24, 2025

Hawes says Hickland’s evident confusion about the bill's requirements is further proof of how poorly it’s written and equates this with overcompliance.

“She’s harassing and threatening a school district that is well within the law, but just not doing what she wants them to do,” Hawes said. “We have talked to so many school districts. We have talked to so many trustees. Everyone is confused. Everyone is angry. What we can all agree on is that this is going to harm our students at a time when we know our literacy rates are the worst they've been in decades.”

What the Law Does and Does Not Leave Out

The lengthy bill doesn’t just stop at hampering the library approval process. It also gives parents more control over what their children can and cannot read. The law allows parents to receive notification every time their student checks out a book, view a catalog of every book their child has checked out and place restrictions on certain titles.

But the bill also leaves a huge gray area: classroom libraries. The bill does not address the shelves that English teachers usually stock with their own collection of personally purchased and donated novels to encourage reading at every grade level.

“If you read the law, it's really unclear,” said Hawes. “The million-dollar question here is, are classroom library books considered instructional materials? They're asking them to take them all off of shelves.”

Just days before the law goes into full effect, it’s unknown whether all teachers will be required to strip their classrooms of all books or apply for approval for each title, but Hawes says it might not matter if threats are made.

“There's a debate, ‘this law isn't making us go in and evaluate every single book already on shelves, right, it’s just about new books?’” said Hawes. “So, should classroom libraries keep them there until certain books are challenged? No one knows. But what they do know is that everyone is afraid of getting in trouble.”