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Catoosa County schools temporarily remove classroom titles as review under Georgia 'harmful materials' law proceeds
Summary
Superintendent Nicks told the board the district has temporarily removed titles from an eighth‑grade classroom library and will convene school media committees to review materials under Georgia’s harmful‑materials law; no formal parent complaints have been filed about the shelf in question, the superintendent said.
Superintendent Nicks told the Catoosa County Board of Education on May 6 that classroom titles at Heritage Middle School had been temporarily removed and will be reviewed under procedures consistent with Georgia law.
The superintendent said the district created a clearly marked parental "permission only" shelf and required a signed parental permission form for any student wishing to borrow titles designated for ages 13 and up; he added that "to date, we still do not have any formal complaint by any parent." The board heard this report during its regular May meeting.
The move matters because the district is operating under the state's post‑2022 statutory framework for instructional materials. Nicks described a multi‑step process: the teacher initially flagged the titles, the principal and a school‑based media committee cataloged the collection using an online system to make it visible to parents, and the committee will reconvene over the summer to decide whether any items should be restricted or removed.
"In response to public recent discussion and out of an abundance of caution, all titles on the shelf in question have been temporarily removed from the classroom for further review," Superintendent Nicks said. He also told the board that the district's investigation "definitively confirmed that at least one book titled Stamped, which was read aloud during public comment, was not in the teacher's classroom library at all." Nicks said an excerpt read publicly may have been from an adult edition rather than the adolescent adaptation.
District staff also said the review has been broadened: all teachers who maintain classroom libraries were directed to submit any titles of potential concern to their school media committees for evaluation. The superintendent said the process is intended to balance "access to a wide range of materials" with "meaningful parental involvement in decisions regarding academic content." The report made clear this is a review and that no formal disciplinary or legal action was reported relating to these specific classroom titles.
The board did not take formal action on the report; instead staff described next steps and timelines. According to the superintendent, the school‑based media committee at Heritage Middle School — made up of teachers, parents, the certified media specialist and the principal — will evaluate the titles this summer and recommend whether any should be restricted or permanently removed.
The report referenced state law generally as the governing authority for the process; board members asked no immediate follow‑up questions and moved to the next agenda items.
