The California Assembly Bill 1078, which Gavin Newsom has until Oct. 14 to sign into law, was approved by the state legislature on Sept. 7. The bill is intended to stop school boards from banning instructional materials based on their reflection of diversity, specifically gender and race. This is in place partly in response to the laws that have been passed in other states, including book bans.
Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Don Austin, clarifies that the legislature seems to only be targeting instructional materials and not supplemental ones for now. But, since the legislation can be amended, he said he would not be surprised if the bill evolved to have more reach.
“Classroom libraries and school libraries are supplemental materials — it’s not really the same as a textbook, so I don’t think it is trying to capture that space,” Austin said. “The legislation gets amended sometimes though so I don’t think it would surprise me if this morphed into something about the books in classroom libraries at some point. But right now, that’s [textbooks] what they’re talking about.”
Sima Thomas, the Palo Alto High School teacher librarian, adds that PAUSD has a school board that encourages school librarians to purchase books that reflect diverse experiences.
“We don’t have a school board that bans books,” Thomas said. “In fact, we have support from the district level to buy and to add diverse books that reflect all student experiences. I also strongly support students in their freedom to choose what they want to read and I feel that our book selection gives them a good part of that freedom.”
Those opposing the bill in California have argued that it prevents schools from banning potentially offensive material. Others have said that the bill is crucial for integrating the idea of a more equitable society into students’ education. Although this bill extends itself to all public schools in California, Austin explains that PAUSD is not as affected by the bill, as the district serves as a “model” for the legislature.
“I think we are a model of what the legislature is aiming schools to be in California,” Austin said. “They are targeting schools that are not in support of those things [diversity], but we’ve been pretty good about that, so nothing is in conflict with our community.”
Thomas said she feels lucky that she is able to pick books for the school library without restrictions.
“I haven’t really dealt with book bans,” Thomas said. “But, I’m just very lucky, and this is a great community you know? All the people: parents, students, teachers all value reading ideas, and it’s really great.”
Austin explains that PAUSD gives students access to a vast amount of resources at any time. As students of all grades in the district are able to find and use these materials, it is easy to forget that PAUSD is not the norm.
“As far as the state of California goes, one extreme has access to everything that’s out there and the other extreme has access to almost none of it,” Austin said.” We are closer to the side where everything is accessible.When you grow up here, it’s easy to forget that we’re more of the exception than the norm.”