Fredericksburg Parent

8 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • August 2025 School divisions that cited a 2022 state law to justify pulling certain books from library shelves were misinterpreting that law. That's according to a report presented on Monday to members of the General Assembly by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. The General Assembly passed a joint resolution early this year tasking JLARC with studying the removal of books from public libraries. The report presented this week was based on a survey JLARC sent to school divisions in the spring as part of this study. The 2022 law, found in Code section 22.1-16.8, requires school divisions to adopt policies ensuring parental notification of any instructional material with sexually explicit content—but it does not require districts to remove books with such content, according to the commis- sion. "That 2022 law doesn't necessarily prohibit sexually explicit content, and it certainly doesn't require even contemplating removing a book from a school library if it does include sexually explicit content," JLARC Associate Director Justin Brown, who worked on this study, told General Assembly members on Monday, according to reporting by the Virginia Scope. "It's quite clear to us—the law requires parental notification when a library book or some other instructional material will be required, and then it gives parents the option to request alter- native material for their individual child." In March of 2023, Mark Taylor, then superintendent of Spotsylvania County schools, issued a memo announcing his decision to "exclude" 14 books that had been challenged by a com- munity member from the school libraries. He said his decision was based on Virginia law, specifically the 2022 law requiring parental notification of sexually explicit content. In October, Taylor removed 23 more titles from school libraries, for a total of 37. In January of 2024, the School Board, under new leadership, voted to restore all the removed books. According to the JLARC report, Spotsylvania, Madison, Goochland, Rockingham, and Hanover counties togeth- er were responsible for 75% of all book removal actions in the state since July 1, 2020. Spotsylvania was responsible for 5% of these actions. More than half of all school divi- sions—63%—reported taking no action to remove books from school libraries. The survey asked divisions for the title and author of all books removed; whether the books were removed upon the recom- mendation of a "challenge committee" or by direction of an administrator, the superin- tendent, or the School Board; whether the librarian or media specialist was involved in the removal process; and whether the law requiring parental notification of sexu- ally explicit content was used to justify the removal. Spotsylvania reported pulling 19 titles from division libraries, according to the report. Division spokeswoman Rene Daniels said these 19 titles had been "professionally weeded" from the collection. The division did not report the 37 titles that were removed in 2023 because "several of the books had been reinstated by direction of the school board," Daniels said. The law as passed by the General Assembly in April of 2022 includes an enactment clause stating that "the provisions of this act shall not be construed as requiring or providing for the censoring of books in pub- lic elementary and secondary schools." However, the enactment clause does not appear in the language on the state code website. In addition, a memo titled "Clarification on School Library Management," released in June of 2023 by Lisa Coons, then the state superintendent of public instruction, does not clarify that the law is not applicable to removing books for all students. The JLARC report states that these two factors "may have contributed to the incor- rect citing of the 2022 law by some divi- sions as the reason for removing a book," and that "it may be useful (at least for some divisions) for VDOE to more directly clarify that the 2022 law does not apply to remov- ing school library books." WRITTEN BY ADELE UPHAUS Spotsylvania is one of the counties that "incorrectly" based a now overturned decision to remove library books on a 2022 state law. Photo by Jessica Ruscello on Unsplash. No More BOOK BOOK BANS? BANS?

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