![]() Then lawmakers passed several bills aimed at restricting the kinds of books that students can read. Tennessee was already under a national spotlight last school year for several high-profile book bans. “We need to get out of the way and let our teachers teach.” Book bans have heightened tensions “This is a classic example of government overreach,” he said. The Knoxville Democrat plans to propose his own legislation next year to clarify that the library law does not extend to classrooms. Sam McKenzie, who serves on a House education committee, doesn’t recall classroom book collections being discussed during debates about the legislation. “At the end of the day, this creates one more barrier to easy book access for students who have no problem accessing things like video games or cellphones.” “It’s exactly the kind of thing that we were afraid of,” she said of the law’s expanded scope. ![]() Lindsey Kimery, past president of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians, said the governor’s chief of staff and policy adviser never mentioned classroom collections when discussing the legislation with representatives of her group earlier this year. “It obviously means a whole lot of work for teachers.” “We don’t think that was the legislative intent,” said Dale Lynch, who leads the state’s superintendents organization. Others involved in the library law’s development say they were taken aback by the state’s broad interpretation of what constitutes a school library. Rawls described how her students beg to read from her collection after they finish a test or assignment, “and I have to say no, you can’t, because I haven’t had a chance to go through all of them to catalog them, to write them all down.” “So most teachers have hundreds of books,” said third-grade teacher Sydney Rawls, whose viral TikTok video showed her spending one Saturday creating an inventory, book by book, at Mitchell-Neilson School in Murfreesboro, south of Nashville. Soon after, several school systems, including large districts in Chattanooga and Murfreesboro, instructed their teachers to begin cataloging their classroom collections by title and author, along with a brief description of each book - just as the new school year was beginning. It also includes “materials maintained in a teacher’s classroom,” wrote Christy Ballard, general counsel for the state education department. 11 memo to district leaders said that under the law, a library collection is not limited to materials found in a traditional school library. ![]() Bill Lee said the purpose was to “ensure parents know what materials are available to students in their libraries.”īut an Aug. The statute requires public schools to scrutinize their library materials for “age appropriateness” and publish the full inventory for parents to view online. Teachers and school leaders across Tennessee are trying to figure out how to satisfy recent state guidance on the 2022 library law. “Pretty much all my parents work, so it’s unlikely they’d have time to volunteer and help.” “The task would be enormous, and I don’t know when I’d have time to do it myself,” she said. Still, White is prepared to box the books up and take them home if Memphis-Shelby County Schools directs her to catalog each one under a new state law aimed at school libraries.
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