ST. GEORGE — The Washington County School District policy involving sensitive materials in school libraries has been updated and is in compliance with a state law enacted this year.
Trustees approved the changes at an early August school board meeting, said Director of Technology Jeremy Cox, who helped write and update District Policy 4211: Media Center Library Materials.
This policy focuses on books and other materials being considered for removal from school libraries if considered “pornographic” after a committee completes a review.
Cox said the most significant of the changes pertains to the adoption of H.B. 465: “Public School Library Transparency Amendments,” which was sponsored by Rep. Douglas R. Welton and Sen. Keith Grover.
The bill, signed by Gov. Spencer Cox on March 17, “requires local education agencies that provide school libraries to provide an online platform that allows a parent to view information regarding materials the parent’s child borrows from the school library.”
Jeremy Cox said the required software is in place.
“This system has already been built and is available to parents within PowerSchool for schools that have migrated to Koha,” he said, “which I believe should be all of them very soon.”
Cox said by next year, all schools will be required to implement Koha, which is the first free and open-sourced library software that is connected with an integrated system used worldwide by multiple libraries, including school, public and private libraries.
PowerSchool is the cloud-based program that the school district uses for coordinating all different aspects of students’ learning, including accounts, grades, and attendance.
The new law also covers transparency regarding crisis response plans, school safety, boundary changes, academics, discipline and more.
“Parents now have easier access to see everything concerning their child within schools,” Cox said.
According to H.B. 465, charter schools operate under different mandates, regarding libraries. Their list of sensitive materials is determined by their school board, instead of a review board or state law. The charter school governing board is required to provide a platform by which parents can view what their child checked out.
If the school has 1,000 students or more then they have until Aug. 1, 2024, to implement this platform. If less than 1,000 students, must be done by Aug. 1, 2026.
The dates are the same for public schools of the same sizes.
Another change in the policy was making it allowable for parents or legal guardians to opt out of the emails that are sent to notify them of a library checkout by their child.
“Just some minor tweaks,” Cox said of the changes to the sensitive materials policy.
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