FRISCO, Texas — Board members for the Frisco Independent School District voted to permanently remove five titles from district shelves Wednesday evening after a state Republican lawmaker challenged 28 books to be reviewed within the district weeks ago.
It was the first time the board had voted to remove titles from district shelves permanently.
State Rep. Jared Patterson of the 106th District appealed to the board to review the titles after they had been vetted and deemed appropriate by parents, staff and administrators.
Patterson is a Frisco ISD parent with three children within the district. He also plans to file new legislation for 2023's legislative session to address sexually explicit books within schools.
In August, he announced that he was challenging 28 titles within the district after they "had each been pulled by either neighboring districts or national book vendor PermaBound due to their explicit nature."
Frisco ISD told WFAA that it had been combing through its library catalog since 2021 to review books that were either obscene or explicit.
To this day, the district has removed at least 307 books from library shelves.
To see a list of those titles and why they were removed, click here.
When a parent or citizen challenges a book for review within the district, they have a few options.
The district may perform an expedited review if it is pointed to specific explicit or obscene content in a book. You can read more on that here.
But most book challenges have the possibility of facing three levels of review.
If material is challenged, a level 1 review includes parents and school staff reviewing the book to see if it is appropriate.
If it is deemed appropriate and the challenger disagrees with the review's conclusion, it can appeal to have a level 2 review involving district officials and administrators.
If the conclusion of that review is not to the challenger's liking, they can appeal to have the board make a final decision on the book.
In this case, seven of the books Patterson challenged reached level 3, where he requested the board has the final say.
The political makeup of the Frisco ISD board has come into the spotlight after a right-leaning PAC supported candidates Stephanie Elad and Marvin Lowe in their May elections.
The pair recently brought forth a bathroom policy that the board approved that requires students to go to the bathroom of the gender they were assigned at birth.
Per the district, administrators can still make accommodations for students upon request.
Lowe expressed displeasure upon voting for the policy, wanting parents to be assured that transgender students would use gender-neutral restrooms and not multi-user restrooms with others.
The district has faced backlash, and the ACLU wants federal officials to investigate the district.
On Wednesday, before a tiny audience, the board reviewed each of the seven books one by one.
The titles being looked at were "The Exact Opposite of Okay," "Chicken Girl," "Glass," "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," "Glass Castle," "Check Please #Hockey," and "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian."
There were enough board members for a quorum, but two were absent.
Lowe and Elad supported each of Patterson's appeals, meaning one swing vote was the only thing needed to remove a book permanently.
The only two books that didn't receive a permanent removal were "Glass Castle," and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."
Elad and Lowe gave their opinions on the review process, and both said they were shocked that a review had to come before the board, considering the material they had to review.
"I'm just surprised and disappointed that these books got this far," Elad said.
"I believe some of the things that we're considering should be obvious to most people that they shouldn't be in our libraries," Lowe said.
Board member John Classe spoke up, saying he respected the work that the previous two reviews had done before voting.
Patterson wasn't present for the meeting, but some of his staff were there.
He sent WFAA the following statement:
“Since August 15th, I have filed 28 formal requests for reconsideration of library books that contained sexually explicit content in Frisco ISD. By September, district reconsideration committees had chosen to remove only 5 of the 28 titles, which then led to me appeal those decisions. By October, senior district leadership chose to remove an additional 16 titles, with 7 titles remaining, which again led to me file a second appeal. And as of today, 5 additional sexually explicit titles have been removed, by school board decision, bringing the total titles removed to 26 out 28, a 93% success rate from our initial appeals.
Further action is required despite success in ridding the schools of this obscene content. Parents cannot spend time and energy into holding the school districts accountable for inappropriate material in the school library, and district leadership has proved their inability to correct the root problems of the issue. I will bring legislation to address this issue in the upcoming session for the sake of our parents, children, and communities as we work to remove sexually explicit books from schools.”