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Committee adopts revised sensitive-materials model policy with timing and selection clarifications
Summary
After legal review and debate over review criteria, the committee amended the model policy (replacing 'uplifting and captivating' with 'educationally enriching', standardizing statutory references to 'obscene animal abuse', and setting a 30-school-day maximum for convening review committees) and forwarded the 2026 model policy to the full board.
The Standards & Assessment Committee debated and amended the board’s sensitive-materials model policy before forwarding the updated 2026 draft to the full board for adoption.
Assistant Attorney General Darren Goff cautioned that subjective language such as "uplifting and captivating" might create legal exposure for viewpoint-discrimination claims; the committee substituted a more statute-aligned phrase, "educationally enriching." Members also corrected multiple statutory references to ensure the draft mirrors the language of state law (including consistent reference to "obscene animal abuse").
The committee wrestled with timelines for convening a subjective review committee after a plausible claim is made. Members ultimately replaced the draft's phrase "within a reasonable time" with a firm limit: "not more than 30 school days," so that a review committee must convene promptly while accounting for school-calendar breaks.
On appeals, the committee clarified that an appeals committee should evaluate a subjective claim using the statutory factor-balancing standard and consider only the criteria already examined by the review committee. That change preserves a narrowly defined appeals review and limits the appeals body to the review committee’s existing record of consideration.
After making editorial and statutory-consistency amendments, the committee voted unanimously to repeal the 2022 model policy and adopt the 2026 model policy draft 3 as amended on first reading, forwarding it to the full board for second and final reading.
What’s next: The full board will consider the committee’s amended 2026 model policy; staff will ensure consistent statutory language and prepare materials explaining the new 30-school-day convening requirement to LEAs.
