Pearland and Turner High Schools are both in the Pearland Independent School District. I'm not sure what its policy is, might be worth a look.
Some of the language below is drawn from Supreme Court cases regarding the legality of obscenity.
- Click here for the article.
The Fort Bend ISD board voted to approve a library book policy on Monday that critics have called the “most restrictive in the state of Texas.”
Critics, who turned out to oppose the vote, said this library policy could result in hundreds of books being taken off Fort Bend ISD library shelves.
. . . Most trustees said the policy was not meant to ban books but to remove explicit content from library shelves.
. . . the policy edited to address some of the community’s concerns, such as banning books that “stimulate sexual desire” among minors, a vague statement without directions as to how that would be decided.
The updated policy mandates that content must not “promote sexual activity among minors or contain graphic images or explicit descriptions of sex acts or simulations of such acts,” and does not describe what “simulations of sex acts” means.
The policy also stipulates that library books “foster growth in … aesthetic values and societal standards,” two terms that are not defined.
It also mandates that content not promote “unlawful” activity, such as illegal use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs by minors. The original policy proposed that content in elementary schools must not depict or describe nudity in a way that “appeals to prurient interest,” but it was amended to remove that sentence and then add a new sentence that read instead that no depictions of sexual activity promoted the touching of genitals among minors.
Prurient, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is defined as “arousing, or appealing to sexual desire.”
The policy was edited to add the term “or superintendent’s designee” in some areas to allow the superintendent to delegate the library materials tasks to someone else, which trustee David Hamilton said came in response to community feedback. Still, the policy as written does leave the authority with the superintendent to either make decisions himself or to choose whom to delegate those decisions to.
