Protestors demonstrate against removing challenged books from school libraries on Dec. 1, 2025. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on December 2, 2025 at 9:24 pm
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The Duval County School Board voted Monday to change its rules for reviewing challenged books that parents or community members flag over potential content violations.
Most of the revisions are to the composition of the committee tasked with reviewing any books that potentially violate state law or district policy. Instead of a committee appointed by district staff, each board member will now name one representative, who must be a parent of a child enrolled at a traditional public school who has access to the materials being reviewed. The district will also appoint two non-voting staff members.
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Previously, the district selected 10 committee members at random from a list of about 200 volunteers. Documents received by Jacksonville Today through a public records request show district staff culled anyone who was not a parent from the list and then chose members in a randomized process that was witnessed by several people.
The book policy change passed Monday on a 5-2 vote, with board members Cindy Pearson and Darryl Willie against it.
Member Melody Bolduc, who voted for the change, said, “Our parents have a right to determine what their children should be able to read. In no way are your rights being violated as a parent if you have access to that book in other locations. But if you’re a parent who would object to graphic sexual content that is in schools, your rights are being violated if we allow it.”
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The new policy, like the previous version, specifies that the challenged books must be removed within five days for review by the committee, which then recommends whether to remove it from the district’s collections. The final decision remains up to the board.
Whose ‘parental rights’?
The vote came after a protest outside the school board headquarters and comments by more than a dozen speakers who asked the board to stop removing books from school libraries. One said, “access ‘somewhere else’ is not equitable access.”
“Many of you ran on platforms centered around parental rights. You sold parents a message of empowerment and autonomy. Yet here you are, preparing to appoint seven people who will dictate what every child in this school system will have access to read. Seven appointees replacing the voices of thousands of parents,” a speaker said. “The hypocrisy would be astounding if it weren’t so offensive and deeply harmful.”
All Florida school districts allow parents to opt their children out of any content they wish.
According to data collected from Florida’s school districts and published by the Florida Freedom to Read Project, fewer than one-quarter of 1% of Duval public school students have parental restrictions on their school library access.
Book review law challenged
The board approved the changes while acknowledging the possibility of additional changes pending a legal challenge of Florida’s book review law.
“We were told by our board attorney that this policy’s really not ready. It’s not in its final form. It still needs some work,” Pearson said.
William Spillias, the board’s attorney, said a federal appellate court may not issue its ruling in the lawsuit to for another 18 months.
Willie asked if any decisions made on challenged books in the meantime might not be valid.
“If we were to pass this and then it’s still deemed unconstitutional, and books get challenged or removed, would we then have to bring them back because it was unconstitutional the whole time?” Willie said.
Spillias said that was “a possibility.”
Duval Schools’ previous book review committee had removed one book after a challenge and a handful of other books after a staff review to comply with the new state law.
