Changes coming to CCSD’s book review policy

The revised policy will enable a school to keep a book available while it is under review, unless the principal, teacher-librarian and school-based library-media center committee all agree to remove it.

Another change guarantees librarians in every Clark County School District library. The updated policy will take effect after being adopted in the consent agenda at the School Board’s Dec. 12 meeting.

No members of the public nor School Board trustees spoke in opposition to the policy at Thursday’s meeting.

Librarian Robin Carpenter was one of three librarians who thanked board members and other administrators for their support of librarians.

“History teaches us that book banners are never on the right side of history,” she said.

Another librarian, Glenda Alberti, said at the meeting that although some of the changes were small wording adjustments, the details are important.

“People will exploit weaknesses in the policy,” she said.

Although unrelated to the election, the decision comes just over a week after two former Moms for Liberty members, Lydia Dominguez and Lorena Biassotti, were elected to the School Board. The trustees-elect, who will take their seats in January, have advocated for removing certain books that they have described as “pornographic.”

“It’s hard not to see this as a way to silence the new trustees and push out a last hooray,” Moms for Liberty Chair Yadusha Jones wrote in a message to the Las Vegas Review-Journal after Thursday’s meeting. “The meeting was a complete waste of time, offering nothing productive for the community.”

Moms for Liberty regularly publishes lists of books it believes should be banned in schools, and members frequently read passages of what they view as inappropriate material at school board meetings.

“The board’s decision to keep sexually explicit material accessible during the review process is a clear example of prioritizing politics over children’s safety,” Dominguez wrote in a message after Thursday’s meeting. “This reckless policy leaves students exposed to inappropriate content while bureaucratic debates drag on. It’s no surprise they’re afraid of the new board coming in and holding them accountable.”

In the school district’s Regulation 6150, members of the public can submit a form of complaint against books. The school-based library media center committee then reviews the policy. If the committee decides to remove the book, the central library-media center committee conducts a final review.

Erin Phillips, the head of parental rights group Power 2 Parent, told the Review-Journal that she had advocated for the complaint form, but not seen much action from the district in response to complaints.

“They should be reviewing their policy,” she said. “There should be a stricter requirement.”

The district’s regulation also states that opinions about a book should be based on the material as a whole without judging passages out of context.

Biassotti said she saw the changes as a way the board was collaborating with new members, but she added that she would not be satisfied until significant changes were made.

Critics of the book banning movement have accused advocates of cherry-picking passages and misconstruing the meaning.

At a high school visit last month, the frequently banned author Ellen Hopkins told the Review-Journal that passages in her books about sexual assault have sometimes been portrayed as graphic sex scenes.

If a person is not satisfied with the result of the complaint, the school district’s policy has an appeal option. A person can contact the assistant superintendent of the curriculum and instruction division, who convenes a central content area committee to review the supplemental textbook. The appeal can only happen once.

Contact Katie Futterman at kfutterman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ktfutts on X.