The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa is seeking help in identifying the books that will be banned from school libraries and classrooms in the upcoming school year.
The Iowa Department of Education has not yet released official guidance for schools looking to implement Senate File 496, a law signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds that requires schools to remove all books with written and visual depictions of sex acts. The ban also applies to books for K-8 students that include material related to gender identity and sexual orientation.
As Iowa school districts prepare for the 2023-24 school year, some have already begun removing certain books from classrooms and school libraries to comply with the new state law.
According to information obtained through an Open Records Law request made by the group Annie’s Foundation, the Urbandale Community School District sent an email to employees in late July with a list of 374 books the district believes could violate the new state law. The titles include books that were mentioned by parents affiliated with groups such as Moms for Liberty when the measure was discussed at the statehouse, including Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, as well as The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, 1984 by George Orwell and Beloved by Toni Morrison.
The Urbandale school district memo also referenced books that could violate the ban on material relating to gender identity and sexual orientation for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Picture books such as Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman, which is a book about a child with parents of the same gender, as well as The Other Boy by M.G. Hennessey, a story about a transgender teen, were noted for potentially violating the new law.
The email from Brandon Schrauth, director of teaching and learning at UCSD, directed staff to implement the restrictions outlined in the law, stating that the staff will be responsible for “ensuring that at a minimum these books are removed from Urbandale classrooms, schools, or blocked on digital libraries and not part of
required learning experiences.”
In the email, Schrauth added that as a school district, Urbandale believes “that student access to high quality books is vital to personal and academic success, and we must also comply with the law … If a student brings a title from home to read that would violate elements of SF496 this is allowable so long as it is not shown to other students.”
No other Iowa school districts have published lists of books they are planning to remove from libraries and classrooms for the upcoming school year. In a message to journalists, the ACLU of Iowa encouraged reporters to reach out to local school districts on the issue and offered assistance filing formal requests for information.
The Urbandale school district put out a statement on social media responding to the publishing of the list, saying the list was necessary as the new school year began July 27 for the district’s year-round elementary school.
“Knowing we had a school starting, we did not want to put our teachers in a position where they had to guess as to what may or may not be acceptable according to SF496,” district officials said in the statement. “In the absence of guidance from the Iowa Department of Education regarding implementation of SF496, we had to take a fairly broad interpretation of the law knowing that if our interpretation was too finite, our teachers and administrators could be faced with disciplinary actions according to the new law.”
The Iowa State Board of Education plans to discuss the new restrictions during its Thursday meeting as a part of a “legislative update,” alongside the other education measures passed during the 2023 legislative session including the Educational Savings Account program.
Heather Doe, Communications Director with the Iowa Department of Education said in an email that “each school district is required to create their own policies and procedures for book selection and reconsideration that comply with Iowa law.”
While implementation of the new law began July 1, enforcement does not kick off until 2024. Beginning January 1, school districts and staff would be subject to penalties if found violating the new content restrictions on school materials.
If a Department of Education investigation found that a district or employee violated the law, they would first issue a written warning, and any subsequent violations would lead to a Board of Educational Examiners ethics investigation and potential disciplinary action.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.
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