Iowa schools want state to clear up book ‘confusion’, state Board of Education president says

DES MOINES — Iowa Department of Education officials left vague their plans to give school administrators more guidance on a state law that bans books with sexual content from school libraries during a state Board of Education meeting Thursday.

The law, passed by Republican lawmakers and signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds this year, requires that school library programs only include “age-appropriate” books. It states that any book that depicts or describes any of a list of sex acts defined elsewhere in law is not age appropriate.

School librarians and administrators have said they are waiting for more guidance from the Department of Education to implement the law.

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School librarians await guidance as they prepare for new law that will ban certain materials

It also bars schools from providing any instruction on gender identity or sexual orientation in kindergarten through sixth grade, and requires schools to provide a copy of classroom material to parents and a pathway to request removal of any material, among other changes.

Department of Education officials presented their summary of changes in this year’s legislative session to the board, which included a section on the law, Senate File 496. The section largely repeats language that was included in the bill, and does not elaborate on the definition of “age-appropriate” or provide information about which books would or would not fall under that definition.

Eric St. Clair, the Department of Education’s liaison to the board, said during the meeting the department may provide more guidance to school districts in the future, but he did not provide any details or a timeline.

“As we get that feedback we’ll review it on a case-by-case basis and determine how to appropriately respond,” he told the board on Thursday.

Board president John Robbins said school officials and administrators are looking to the department for guidance in implementing the law.

“There’s a lot of confusion, people in the field that I’ve talked to are looking at the (department) or somebody to provide directions,” he said. “Because right now people are kind of either guessing what is right or wrong, and not being in violation of the law.”

Anything the department can do to address that confusion would be "more than welcome," Robbins said.

Without guidance, some fear districts will remove too many books

Earlier this week, Department of Education spokesperson Heather Doe pointed to the department’s summary of legislation presented at the meeting in response to a question about whether the department will provide guidance to school administrators on the law.

“As always, each school district is required to create their own policies and procedures for book selection and reconsideration that comply with Iowa law,” Doe said in an email.

The Urbandale Community School District has developed a list of nearly 400 books — first reported by the nonprofit Annie’s Foundation — that will be excluded from classrooms and libraries in the upcoming year. The books include classics like George Orwell’s “1984” and J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”; and under the prohibition on gender identity and sexual orientation, the school listed children's books about notable LGBTQ figures like U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, from Kansas.

Margaret Buckton, a lobbyist with the Urban Education Network and the Rural School Advocates of Iowa, told the board Thursday a lack of guidance could hurt Iowa students’ education and limit their access to reading at school.

She said a lack of clear standards would lead to school districts interpreting the law in the most broad sense in order to avoid being penalized, and that would lead to unnecessary books being removed.

“They're turning to school attorneys, whose focus is risk management, not necessarily what students need,” she said. “So we're hearing some concerning things about schools potentially being too conservative in their interpretation or overly interpreting the law.”

The Iowa City Community School District said it is working with legal counsel to “get questions answered and ensure we are moving forward with a complete understanding of the new requirements,” it said in a statement provided to The Gazette Thursday.

Iowa City schools’ teachers will return to work on Aug. 17. “At that time, we will provide them with guidance on reviewing classroom and library materials to ensure compliance with the law,” according to the district statement.

Buckton said clearer guidance is needed to apply the portion of the law banning instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in schools as well.

The definition of sexual orientation in state law is “actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality.” So, Buckton said, if a book is removed only because a family has two moms or two dads, books with a mom and a dad would also need to be removed.

“That is going to be really problematic when you look at all of the curriculum instruction and library materials available to our elementary students who are trying to define their own families,” she said. “And that would simply be absurd.”

New law creates ‘climate of censorship’, library advocates warn

PEN America, an organization that advocates for library freedom and against book restrictions, wrote a letter to the Urbandale district urging it to reverse the decision to remove the list of books from its library.

In a news release, the organization said the district took “the broadest possible interpretation of the law” to prevent disciplinary action.

“Our letter to Urbandale Community School District signals to district leaders and others across the state that ‘broad interpretations’ of vague laws threaten the freedom to read for students and infringe upon their constitutionally protected rights,” said Kasey Meehan, a program director at PEN America, in a Thursday news release. “ … Rather than supporting educators, librarians, and school districts as they start another school year, the governor’s mandate has added an excessive burden on educators to review their classroom libraries and start the school year in a climate of censorship.”