The Texas House Committee on Public Education will consider SB 13 on Tuesday, May 6 at 8am. We are running out of time to stop this bill- that threatens to destroy Texas public school libraries- from becoming law. If you are a Texas parent, retired or current school librarian, or supporter of public school libraries of any kind, and you have been saving yourself to testify on ONE bill this session- please join the parents behind Texas Freedom to Read Project, in Austin, on Tuesday and speak up against SB 13.

Here is what you need to know, and how you can help! 

You can find the agenda for the Public Education Committee meeting here. Keep in mind the order in which the committee discusses each bill will not be known to the public in advance- so SB 13 could be discussed at 8am, or anytime after that- even late into the evening We promise it's not as bad as it sounds. There are worse things in the world than spending a day at the Capitol with book-loving friends!  

Below are details for how to make your voice heard, no matter what option you choose. Whatever you do- please do SOMETHING. 

Provide In-Person Verbal or Written Comments on SB 13: Tuesday, May 6 at 8AM

1. In-person verbal testimony:  Witnesses are usually given 2 minutes to make their public comment on the bill they wish to speak about. You will need to declare your name, and whether you are speaking "for" "against" or "on" (neutral) SB 13. Note, if you have more to say, than can fit in 2 minutes, you can provide both in-person verbal, and in-person written testimony. Be prepared to stay all day- bring food, water, chargers, electronics, books, and patience. Find out more about how to register, once you arrive at the Capitol, here.
2. Written comments (can be submitted remotely and ahead of time): You can submit written comments through the Texas House's Online Public Comment form here. Be sure to select SB 13. The Committee Meeting Agenda states written comments will be accepted until Tuesday's hearing is adjourned.  

For in-person verbal testimony, witnesses (you!) will need to arrive at the Texas Capitol and make your way to the John H. Reagan Building- Room 140 (JHR 140) in time to sign in at a kiosk outside the meeting room before they begin discussion on the bill. They do not make the order of the agenda known to the public so the only way to guarantee you will have a chance to speak, is to sign in before 8:00 am. Paid parking is available at the Capitol Garage found at 1201 San Jacinto Blvd, Austin, TX 78701. 

Whether you're coming to speak, or just want to show your support for those who are, please wear BLUE for BOOKS! (or wear your favorite Book Lover/Book Ban fighting apparel!) Committee Meetings are open to the public- you do not have to be speaking to attend.

Make Some Phone Calls

Call the members of the House Public Education Committee and state your opposition to SB 13. If you can't call them all, we would recommend focusing on the chair- Representative Brad Buckley, Representative Harold Dutton (who is a Democrat on the committee who voted "yes" to last session's school library book ban bill- HB 900- and we really need on our side with SB 13), and your representative if they happen to serve on the committee. If you don't already know, you can find out who represents you here.  

Here's a sample script you can use and adapt for your own needs:

"Hi, my name is (first name) and I'm calling in regards to SB13, the Library Advisory Committee bill. As a (parent/Texan/voter) and school library supporter, I am asking you to oppose this bill because it would give a few politically appointed parents decision making power over what books all students in a community have access to. I would like my district to focus on improving math and reading scores instead of worrying about controlling library books.  Also, Texas already passed HB 900- a school library bill- that school districts are still working to figure out and implement- so we don't need another one. Please ask the Representative to vote "no" on SB 13 if it comes up for a committee vote. Thank you."

Send Some Emails

Email the House Public Education Committee members. You can email them individually, or use the link below to send an email to the entire committee using a few clicks. We highly recommend you personalize the email template, to maximize impact. 

Send an email to the Public Education Committee of the Texas House

Personalize the template to maximize impact.

Below is the testimony and analysis Texas Freedom to Read Project has shared with lawmakers, that may be helpful for your understanding of how SB 13 will significantly harm school libraries and Texas students.

On Monday, May 6, 2025 the Public Education Committee of the Texas House will consider SB13, a bill intended to guard “against inappropriate books in public schools.” While that is a laudable goal, Texas Freedom to Read Project has analyzed the bill and we recommend that members vote not to advance the bill out of committee. Ultimately, SB13 would damage our children’s education, and as parents of Texas public school students we must speak up to prevent that from happening. 

Our concerns are not based on speculation; many measures included in the bill have already been adopted by Texas school districts, and the harms they have caused to Texas students are real and documented. If SB13 were to be adopted statewide, it is fair to assume those negative results would spread across Texas.

In particular, we are concerned about measures included in the bill that slow and complicate libraries’ purchasing processes and that add new categories of content (“profane” material and “indecent” material) that must be excluded from Texas schools. And, while school libraries will bear many of SB13’s negative effects, we also want to emphasize that the bill would also hinder the teaching of English Language Arts and literature in our state.

Here are our concerns: 

SB13 will slow library purchases to a trickle

“At my daughter’s middle school the shelves are barren, because they were required to pull so many books and they can’t buy new books because of the process they put in place. We can’t get any books.”

Keller ISD mom Laney Hawes

SB13 contains several measures that make it harder for school librarians to buy books for their shelves. Specifically, before ordering any book, SB13 requires librarians to a) consult with a local school library advisory council (which is only required to meet twice per year), b) make purchase orders available for public review for at least 30 days, and c) receive approval from the district Board of Trustees during a public meeting.   

In 2022, Carroll ISD adopted a school library materials policy that, like SB13, requires a 30-day review period and board approval for all library purchases. The result was that the process for purchasing library books became so arduous that the district largely stopped buying new books. 

In 2020-2021, Carroll ISD ordered 5077 books for its intermediate, middle, high, and senior high schools. The district paused library purchases in early 2022 while it developed its new policy, which was approved in July of that year. Under its new policy, Carroll ISD ordered just 673 books for the same schools for both the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years combined. Notably, for at least two school years, librarians ordered zero (0) new books for Southlake Carroll Senior HS.  

Other Texas districts have followed Carroll’s lead, with similar results. In late 2022, Keller ISD also instituted a 30-day public comment period with required board approval on all book purchases. Keller ISD parent and Texas Freedom to Read Project co-founder Laney Hawes described what happened next: “At my daughter’s middle school the shelves are barren, because they were required to pull so many books and they can’t buy new books because of the process they put in place.” 

“We can’t get any books,” she said.

It’s common sense: If you make the process for buying books harder, slower, and riskier, schools are going to buy fewer books. In districts that have adopted the measures proposed in SB13, like Carroll and Keller, the results have been devastating.

SB13 casts a broad net that will catch innocent books

In 2023, State Representative Gina Hinojosa expressed concern during a committee hearing that vague wording in HB900, the READER Act, would result in the removal from schools of books that aren’t sexually explicit but are, well, silly.  

“I’m a boy mom,” Hinojosa said, holding up some of her son’s favorite books: The Fart Quest series, Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers. 

“My son is dyslexic,” she continued, “and it’s books like these, that are lacking in sophistication and talk about bodily functions, that inspire him to read.” 

“My son is dyslexic, and it’s books like these, that are lacking in sophistication and talk about bodily functions, that inspire him to read.” 

State Representative and Austin ISD mom Gina Hinojosa

The bill’s author, State Representative Jared Patterson, reassured her: “I’ve got two boys, too, one in middle school, one in elementary.” He insisted that removing such books wasn’t the intent of the bill, and promised to work to “tighten up” the language of the bill to avoid the unintended consequences Hinojosa foresaw.

Instead, the vague language stayed, and as Hinojosa worried, districts around Texas have removed books for having non-sexual content that is simply humorous or artistic.  

Katy ISD, for example, has permanently banned Eric Carle’s classic children’s book, Draw Me a Star, because one page in the book includes two (blurry, abstracted) naked people. And Keller ISD pulled Emma Straub’s children’s book Very Good Hats from purchase after a parent complained that “one of the illustrations has a bare butt.” These and similar removals have brought embarrassment to school district leaders and, sometimes, policy reversals as leaders learn the hard way the dangers of overbroad language. But more importantly they have removed appealing books from young readers.

Rather than fixing this problem, SB13 compounds it, adding two new vague, broad categories of books that are forbidden in Texas schools: books with “indecent content” and books with “profane content.” Both categories go beyond the mandate to remove sexually explicit books, requiring schools to remove books that are merely “offensive,” even without any sexual content. The result is as predictable now as it was in 2023: innocent books will be removed from schools, and students will lose access to great books.

SB13 will make it harder for English teachers to do their jobs

SB13 won’t just affect the state’s school libraries, though. At Texas Freedom to Read Project, we have heard from English teachers across the state who have been negatively impacted by the current climate of fear over books, which SB13 would exacerbate.

“At one point yesterday I closed my door and sat with my back against the wall and just sobbed.”

Klein ISD English teacher, on emptying her classroom library shelves

We have heard from teachers who have spent years lovingly building classroom libraries that supplement their instruction and enrich student achievement, only to be forced to empty those classroom libraries due to directives from district administrators seeking to adhere to new laws. “At one point yesterday I closed my door and sat with my back against the wall and just sobbed,” one teacher told us after dismantling her classroom library. 

Classroom libraries are vital points of contact between students and books–especially important as districts reduce resources for campus libraries due to budgetary constraints. But when books are seen as inherently suspicious, schools see classroom libraries as liabilities. And students are more and more likely to walk into classrooms with few or no books.

Additionally, changes to library materials often affect books available for English instruction, and districts that remove books from their libraries usually ban them from classroom instruction, too. This can lead to real challenges for English teachers, particularly at the high school level. 

We have talked to teachers who have had to rework weeks’ worth of lesson plans in a morning because novels were restricted after they had already started instructional units based on those texts. We’ve even heard from teachers who were forced to pull copies of Brave New World from students’ hands in the middle of a unit on dystopian novels. 

And social media support groups for high school English teachers are flooded with comments from teachers in Texas wondering how they are supposed to do their job when novels they have taught for years are suddenly off-limits, and possible replacements also seem to fall afoul of the same restrictions they’re now being asked to observe.

“The AP Literature curriculum has been gutted.”

Conroe ISD English teacher

Again, the problems SB13 will cause are already playing out in districts that have adopted policies with similar measures. The lessons of Katy and Keller, of Conroe and Klein, are clear: SB13 will cheat Texas students of valuable reading experiences. 

Conclusion: SB13 is not right for Texas.

SB13 reflects a genuine and understandable desire, shared by many Texans–including us–to protect young people from harmful and age-inappropriate material. And it contains measures that could benefit both parents and Texas public schools by increasing transparency on behalf of local school districts and fostering collaboration between schools and the parents whose children they serve.

But SB13 also contains elements that, if written into law, will devastate Texas school libraries and English classes, ultimately harming our children by setting back efforts to educate students in both literacy skills and the joy of reading.

As parents of Texas public school students, we urge lawmakers to vote against any legislation, including SB13, that implements arduous processes for purchasing books for school libraries and removes books from schools based on overbroad content designations. We ask you to allow our kids to read freely, and to enjoy the benefits of good libraries and literacy instruction.