Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Library Policy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Abilene ISD trustees uphold SLAC recommendations, reject book-challenge appeal
Summary
After public comments defending challenged titles and requests to protect volunteer SLAC members from online harassment, the Abilene ISD board on Jan. 8 denied an appeal and affirmed SLAC recommendations to retain or reclassify several high-school titles; trustees recorded a roll-call vote and the board will proceed with the SLAC-approved purchase timeline.
Abilene ISD trustees voted on Jan. 8 to deny an appeal of SLAC (the district’s school-library advisory) recommendations and to affirm the committee’s prior decisions on a set of challenged high-school titles.
The motion to deny the appeal and confirm SLAC’s recommendations was made by Trustee Taylor Tidmore and seconded by Trustee Blair Schrader. The board read aloud the list of high-school titles the motion would keep on district shelves: I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter; The Bluest Eye; The Glass Castle; The Kite Runner; The Lovely Bones; 19 Minutes; Poet X; Sold; Speak; and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. A roll-call vote was taken with trustees responding as recorded in the meeting transcript: Rodney Goodman — No; Angie Wiley — Yes; Bill Enriquez — Absent; (Cindy — recorded in transcript) — Yes; Blair Schrader — Yes; Danny Wheat — Yes; Taylor Tidmore — Yes. The motion passed.
The vote came after a lengthy public-comment period in which parents, librarians and community members urged trustees to respect SLAC’s review process and called for protections for volunteer committee members who have faced online harassment. Kate Stover, a librarian at Abilene High, said the SLAC upheld titles previously challenged and that books like Speak give students coping tools: "Removing books that give students tools to cope and help them know they're not alone is not protecting them." Chrissy Brokaw, a parent and library liaison, said a SLAC voting member resigned after anonymous social-media attacks and asked the board to "look into" protections for volunteers.
Trustees who spoke in favor of upholding the SLAC recommendations emphasized parental choice mechanisms the district uses — including email notifications for checked-out books — and the fact the SLAC is a parent-majority committee appointed by the board. Trustee Blair Schrader said the district should not be "held hostage" by a small, vocal group on social media and voiced confidence in the committee's work.
Lindsay Williamson, executive director for secondary curriculum and instruction, summarized the SLAC’s Dec. 15 meeting outcomes for the remaining 10 challenged titles: some titles were recommended to be retained as originally shelved, some to be reclassified for upper high school (accessible to 11th and 12th graders only), and several recommended for removal from the district catalog. Williamson told the board the SLAC had followed the process required by SB 13 and that challenged titles were removed from shelves during the review period.
The board’s action affirms SLAC decisions already made in December and allows district librarians to proceed with purchases and placement per the committee’s recommendations. At the meeting trustees raised questions about the ability of SLAC members to be targeted online; multiple speakers urged the board to consider stricter safeguards around recording and sharing SLAC meeting clips. The board did not announce immediate new policy changes on recordings at this meeting.
What’s next: Williamson said librarians have an ongoing purchasing pipeline and that additional purchase lists will be presented at the SLAC meeting on Jan. 26 and later to the board for approval. The board’s formal action resolves the pending appeal covered at this open meeting.
