Florida is asking school districts to take a more proactive approach to reviewing books in school libraries and classrooms.
The Florida Department of Education sent a memo to district superintendents and charter school leaders in September, reminding them that school boards are responsible for the materials available to students.
The memo also lays out a 90-day plan for districts to review their collections and procedures.
The state has already identified about 600 books that have been removed or discontinued in Florida districts following objections or school board decisions. Three of the 10 districts on the list are in Central Florida.
The push came ahead of Banned Books Week, an annual observance focused on challenges to books and access to reading material, as recognized by the American Library Association.
The state says the goal is to make sure students do not have access to material that violates Florida law or is inappropriate for their age.
But some authors and free-expression advocates say the state's approach is leading to books being removed based on isolated passages rather than the context of an entire work.
Here’s the stats
According to PEN America, nearly 12,000 instances of book bans were recorded in U.S. public schools during the 2025-26 school year, the most recent data available.
The bans affected more than 7,000 unique books and more than 4,000 authors, illustrators and translators. Fiction accounted for 87% of the titles.
A record 114 school districts in the U.S. banned books last school year. Florida reported more than 3,000 book bans, second only to Texas, which reported more than 8,000.
In Central Florida, Orange, Polk and Sumter counties reported book removals. Sumter County, which includes The Villages, removed 22 books from high school libraries. Polk County reported 32 removals, while Orange County reported one.
Clay County, just north of Central Florida, reported more than 260 book removals.
Florida author pushes back
Carl Hiaasen is a Florida author who said he’s had his fair share of books removed from his home state’s school libraries and classrooms.
His books, including Flush, Skink–No Surrender and Wrecker, have faced challenges and restrictions in Florida school districts and public libraries amid objections over their content and the state’s laws governing books available to students, which he said is quite common.
“This goes back ever since the first books were published, there were people trying to stop other people from reading them, it’s nothing new,” Hiaasen said.
He said removing books can have the opposite effect of what officials intend by drawing more attention to them.
“Kids are smart,” Hiaasen said. “They're going to read what they want to read and the more controversy that stirs up, more headlines that stir up, the more intrigue and interest comes from the young readers.”
Despite seeing his books removed from school shelves, Hiaasen said he feels flattered rather than angry to be “banned” alongside authors he admires.
“I am always honored to be on the same list with Judy Blume and Stephen King and Maya Angelou and J.D. Salinger,” he said. “I mean, for a modern writer, there's a certain badge of honor to it, I feel bad for the readers.”
The state's position
The Florida Department of Education said districts have a legal responsibility to make sure instructional and library materials are appropriate for the students who can access them.
In the September memo, Education Commissioner Henry Mack said districts should not rely solely on parents to identify potentially inappropriate material.
The department pointed to state law requiring district school boards to oversee instructional materials and other materials available in classrooms and school libraries.
The department also cited a required training for personnel involved in selecting and maintaining library materials. That training addresses Florida's law prohibiting the distribution to minors of certain material that is considered harmful to minors.
The memo makes clear that appearing on that list does not automatically create a statewide ban. Instead, the department says districts that still have those books should review them to determine whether they comply with Florida law and are appropriate for their students.
The department also said in the memo the “Commissioner of Education may investigate allegations of noncompliance with law or state board rule and determine probable cause.”
If a district is found to be out of compliance, the State Board can order corrective action. The memo also says state law allows additional enforcement measures, including withholding certain state funds in cases of continued noncompliance.
Local outlook
Orange County School Board member Alicia Farrant has expressed support for the state's efforts.
In a social media post about the Department of Education's action, Farrant called it “a breath of fresh air” and said she hoped the effort would help remove what she described as inappropriate material from schools.
“There should be no reason that anyone would want to expose kids to sexual content,” she said. “They want to call this you know book bans, but really it's just removing content that shouldn't have made its way into our schools.”
Farrant compared the removal of books to the standards radio stations use to determine what content is appropriate for their audiences. She said, “There may be a song that has explicit words, but when it's on the radio, there's a radio version. And if there is no radio version, that song is not allowed on the radio because they have standards that are set.”
While Farrant said there are still areas where the department can improve, she views the plan as a step in the right direction, even though other board members do not always agree with her.
As an example of what she considers explicit content that remains on school shelves, Farrant pointed to Do Animals Fall in Love?, a book discussed for its sexual content during an OCPS school board meeting in January. The board voted 6-2 to keep the book on school shelves.
She also mentioned Tricks by Ellen Hopkins and Let’s Talk It Out, which was removed from OCPS because of sexual and non age appropriate content..
“This is not content that they would need to read in order to be successful adults in life. And so I would say to those parents, why would you want to expose other people's kids to content that is age inappropriate?” she said.
Other school districts in Central Florida like Sumter and Lake County are already well into the review process, and district officials at OCPS said they anticipate any changes being finalized by mid-December.
What districts are being asked to do
The department's recommended 90-day plan calls for districts to begin with a review of books on the state's list of materials removed or discontinued following objections.
Districts are also encouraged to review frequently challenged authors and series, books with potentially explicit sexual content, classroom libraries, book fairs and donated materials.
It also calls for each flagged title to be evaluated and categorized as complying with the law, not complying, requiring a full-text review or needing to be moved to a different grade level.
The department recommends involving parents in a structured review process.
Under the plan, districts could create panels made up of school library staff, curriculum leaders, administrators, legal or compliance staff and parents. The plan says parents would provide input, while final decisions would remain with school officials and school boards.
Districts are also encouraged to inventory classroom libraries, review donated books before putting them into circulation and establish procedures for handling books that are challenged.
The department said the goal is to make sure districts are following Florida law before parents have to bring individual books to school board meetings for review.
Here’s a play by play of the 9 step plan:
1. Put the review process in writing
- Districts should direct principals and the chief academic officer to complete a review of library collections during the term.
- New library or classroom-library purchases should not be made until a certified media specialist reviews and approves the title under Florida law and the Department of Education’s training.
- Principals should attest that classroom libraries were selected using the same process as the media center.
2. Conduct a voluntary, layered audit
- Review collections in stages rather than trying to review every title at once.
- Start with books on the department’s list of materials removed or discontinued after objections.
- Review frequently challenged authors and series.
- Review elementary books with known sexual conduct passages, followed by middle and high school materials.
- Review classroom libraries, book fairs and donated materials.
3. Use the department’s standard for reviewing books
- Incorporate the standard from the department’s required training into the district’s review process.
- The plan says that if an adult selector would not be comfortable reading a passage aloud at a public meeting, the district should lean toward not placing the material in a school library.
- The plan also points to Florida law concerning materials considered pornographic or harmful to minors.
4. Create a structured role for parents
- Create a Library Materials Integrity Panel that could include certified media specialists, curriculum leaders, a principal, legal or compliance staff and parents from different grade levels.
- Have the panel review books flagged during the audit rather than the entire collection.
- Publicly outline the panel’s responsibilities, review criteria, meeting dates and recommendations.
- Final decisions would remain with certified selectors and, ultimately, the school board.
5. Close gaps in how books enter schools
- Pause donated books and leftover book-fair materials until a certified media specialist reviews them.
- Inventory classroom libraries.
- Make sure digital content and vendor contracts follow district restrictions and Florida law.
- Set a 30-day deadline for full-text reviews of books pulled after an objection or flagged during an audit.
6. Hold principals accountable
- Require principals to provide a mid-year certification showing that required training has been completed.
- Procedures should be posted, classroom libraries inventoried and the department’s list cross-checked.
- Principals should also certify that unselected donated materials are not on school shelves.
7. Review books as part of regular collection maintenance
- Use the district’s regular process for removing books that are damaged, no longer circulating or no longer relevant to the curriculum.
- The plan says districts should use this process rather than waiting for a formal challenge.
8. Brief the school board
- District leaders should update the board on the number of books flagged, removed or retained with grade-level restrictions.
- They should also report which schools remain out of compliance and the district’s progress on the 90-day plan.
9. Communicate the process
- Send parents a short letter and provide staff with an FAQ.
- Explain that Florida law requires age-appropriate collections.
- Tell families that the district is auditing its materials and that parents can inspect books.
- Explain that objections will be handled according to the required process.
