Lake Travis ISD emerges as a battleground for school book bans

Student raising hand during a library lesson at the Rough Hollow Elementary School on March 21, 2024. School districts across Texas and U.S. are facing growing efforts to remove books from their libraries. Lake Travis school board has voted to remove three books from libraries this school year.

Trustees’ debate over the fate of both books came hours after impassioned public testimony. Nineteen people — 10 of whom were students — urged the board to keep both titles on the shelves. Carter, a sophomore at Lake Travis High School, addressed the board and described “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” as a wonderful book. He conceded that some parts are not appropriate for, say, a 10-year-old.

“I think it helps to clarify that if you are wanting to restrict access to any particular materials for your own child, you’re able to do that immediately,” she said. “There no restrictions or hurdles to jump through, you simply need to talk to your campus librarian.” “I think it is important that if there is a resource that needs to be reconsidered that we spend the time to do that,” Prehn said. “Some resources are easy — they’re picture books — they take us 10 minutes to look at together and some are more robust resources like 500-page novels that are getting challenged at the high school level, for example.”

“I think there’s a lot that we could do in terms of sharing who is challenging these books,” she said. “I think we should also know why these books are challenged because the rationale matters. It matters why someone is challenging a book.”, including why the book was challenged and an overview of the committee’s decision on whether to keep the book in the library.

“One is that it takes too long. Book challenges are taking nine to 10 months, so I would like a revision where it’s a shorter time period for…the challenger,” she said. “I fully support parents being able to have a say in what their kids can and can’t read. What I don’t support is other parents being able to have a say in what my kid can and cannot read,” Lindsey said.While Lake Travis ISD does not publish the names of people who have challenged books within its school libraries, those individuals can address trustees when their grievance reaches the board. That is what LTISD parent Jodie Dover did last Wednesday.

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