Fort Worth ISD's state-appointed board of managers voted 7-0 on Nov. 10 to dissolve the district's School Library Advisory Council, ending a volunteer panel that elected trustees created in 2025 to screen library purchases before they reached the board.
The request came from the person running it. Layne Craig, the council's chair, told managers the extra review delayed librarians' book buys and repeated work staff were already doing, Fort Worth Report reported. Managers Jay Stegall and Luis Galindo were absent.
Built By Trustees, Ended By Managers
Elected trustees approved a resolution establishing a Local School Library Advisory Council on Sept. 23, 2025, and the vote carried 9-0, according to board minutes. The council was created to scrutinize proposed acquisitions and offer suggestions to the school board.
The district set it up after Texas enacted Senate Bill 13 in 2025. Fort Worth Report described that law as allowing districts to form school library advisory councils without requiring them, and as setting rules for evaluating library materials and for parent access to information about available books. More than a dozen North Texas districts voted to form similar councils after the law passed, a Yahoo News report on those bodies found.
Fort Worth's version did not survive into a second fall under the managers who now run the district. On Oct. 13, the board agenda still listed an action item to approve School Library Advisory Council recommendation lists, and the agenda summary said that list had been publicly posted for at least 30 days, according to the October meeting packet. Four weeks later, the council was gone.
Hundreds Of Titles, And A Chair Who Wanted Out
Members evaluated lists containing hundreds of books each month and decided whether the titles met community standards, Fort Worth Report reported. Craig, an educator and the mother of two Fort Worth ISD students, said that after nearly a year of meetings the council was repeating the work of librarians and district staff.
She also said the panel sometimes stopped proposed purchases from reaching the board, delayed board votes, and had trouble keeping enough members present to do the job. In her account, the council hindered librarians and provided no meaningful service to the district's parents and students. Eliminating it, she told managers, would get books to children faster and let librarians spend less time on process demands and more time delivering books to students.
Council member Zach Leonard supported the same proposal. Leonard, vice president of the Fort Worth ISD Council of PTAs and head of Families Organized & Responding to Takeover, said librarians already have the training and experience to evaluate books before students receive them. A second, slower layer of volunteer review, he said, creates delay without adding much protection.
The Review That Does Not Leave With The Council
Under the district's February 2026 library-materials guidelines, the council reviewed titles and made recommendations to the Board of Managers, which held final approval, according to Library Media Services. Those guidelines say a district employee, a parent or guardian of a district student, or a district resident could challenge library material. A committee evaluating an objection includes a librarian and at least one instructional staff member familiar with the material.
The district's School Library Advisory Council page describes a 30-day public review: proposed titles are posted, and families and community members can submit questions or objections. That posting practice was already written into the October agenda. Fort Worth Report reported that librarians and other professional staff will now suggest materials directly to the board and will keep evaluating proposed titles for compliance with district standards and state rules.
Board members retain the authority to accept or decline a purchase. The district must still publish a proposed materials list at least 30 days before a board vote and give parents and community members a chance to inspect those materials. Parents, district employees and residents may still contest books already in school libraries.
Quieter Councils, And A Louder State Debate
Fort Worth's complaint about delay landed in a year of much broader restriction. The Texas Freedom to Read Project reported that Texas school districts removed or restricted 7,861 books in the 2025-2026 school year, which the project described as a 400% increase over the previous year's documented removals and restrictions. Fewer than 3% of those removals and restrictions, the project said, resulted from formal challenges.
Where parent-led advisory councils did take up challenged books, the same project found they retained the titles 78.2% of the time. Elsewhere in North Texas, the volunteer bodies have often had less to do. The Yahoo News report said regional school library advisory councils met an average of four times a year, and that at least five other councils contacted through interviews and public-records requests had received no book challenges in the preceding year.
Lawmakers were already talking about tightening the 2025 statute before Fort Worth's managers voted. At an Oct. 8 hearing of the Texas Senate Education Committee, members heard speakers describe what they called loopholes in Senate Bill 13 and discussed strengthening the law, Houston Public Media reported. Texas Education Agency deputy commissioner Shannon Trejo told the committee that many school districts do not have an online catalogue of the books in their libraries.
Fort Worth has now dropped the optional council while leaving the public posting, the board's yes-or-no, and a challenge route in place. The volunteer group that was reading hundreds of proposed titles a month will not be in that line.
