District 28 State Senator Charles Perry attended the June 25 Lubbock ISD Board of Trustees meeting, not to discuss the $22 million budget shortfall or the aging infrastructure of the Administration Building – which resulted in a broken water main on the day of the meeting – but said he was there to speak on the content of books in Lubbock ISD libraries.
Books like “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” were reviewed by Lubbock ISD librarians and parents, in line with state laws such as Senate Bill 13 and House Bill 900, or the READER Act, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2023.
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is a coming-of-age romantic comedy novel about a high school senior and his friend who was diagnosed with Leukemia. The book, often criticized in reviews for its profane language and sexual references, was among the American Library Association’s top 10 most-challenged books in 2024.
“Public school libraries should be a safe place, should be a place where parents and grandparents don't have to wonder about the derogatory terms that are being used in context of female anatomy, and the whole book that's around that,” Perry said.
In May, LISD’s school library advisory council gave a list of recommendations to the Board of Trustees, retaining some books in middle and high school libraries, most in high school libraries exclusively. One series, “A Court of Wings and Ruin,” was recommended for removal from all school libraries. These recommendations were unanimously approved by trustees. “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” was removed from middle school libraries and retained in high schools.
According to Perry, despite the new review processes, there are still multiple books in Lubbock school libraries that he believes are inappropriate.
“I'm not naive. I was a boy being a boy – I worked in the oil fields to pay for Texas Tech – I know about profane and vulgar,” Perry said. “But here's the difference: when we stole a dad's Playboy Hustler somewhere and got in a corner, we [knew] there was something bad, inherently wrong with it, because we had a backstop at home. We had a moral compass. 70% of your kids probably never see the inside of a church.”
Perry helped author Senate Bill 13 in 2025, establishing local school library advisory councils, or SLACs, for Texas school districts, intended to give public school parents more oversight of library content that their children can access.
Community members met with Lubbock ISD’s SLAC committee at their first meeting in November to provide a list of “over 1,000 titles” from LISD libraries, with 635 flagged as “sexually explicit.” The SLAC committee takes reconsideration forms for materials that parents want to see pulled from school libraries. Volunteers have joined to read through the books in review. Parents can also call school librarians to make sure that their child is not allowed to check out specific books.
“I read the SLAC criteria on how they do things and the way they get to where they go,” Perry said. “I'm just going to say, being the cynic that I have become as a politician for 20 years, it seems to have been developed to stall and frustrate.”
While he notes that Lubbock ISD followed legal statutes, Perry said he still has a problem with Lubbock ISD’s current procedure, and he’ll be carrying that in mind when he returns to Austin for another legislative session in 2027. Multiple speakers at the board meeting, including Perry, suggested the SLAC committee incorporate AI into the procedure.
“What's on the shelves today is not where we want to land, and while I will take back the SLAC committee processes, and we will have statute revisions if necessary, I hope this board can appreciate that," Perry said. "The AI search of a derogatory list of words that are not acceptable will make quick work of this.”
Opportunity for conversation and choice
Many Texas school districts turned to AI tools to deal with the flood of demands for library reviews in response to SB 13, but critics have argued that they carry a risk of including human bias from those who train the AI, without the challenges and perspectives of a committee of community-based parents and librarians.
Amanda Caroll is a books editor with the independent children's media advocacy organization, Common Sense Media.
“The AI model is going to learn, like, 'Oh, this is what you're looking for from this particular slant,' and so there's no way to take out bias in the AI systems right now, in terms of how to evaluate a text,” Caroll said.
Common Sense Media provides information and reviews on children’s media and their sources, including AI, with criteria focused on child development and reviewers who are experts in children’s media. Caroll said with the expansion of AI tools into creative spaces, the drive by creators to protect their own work is making AI even less effective for mass evaluation.
“Authors and publishers are mad-dash organizing to prevent AI from being trained on their content, their books, and their titles, and so there are lots of titles, especially recently published titles, that just aren't available for the AI to examine, so it's not a reliable way to be scanning books for content,” she said.
Book challenges across the country have increased in recent years. The American Library Association reported 2025 as the second-highest year for book challenges recorded by the organization, with 92% coming from government officials or special interest groups.
As a group, Common Sense Media has expressed opposition to book challenge efforts. Carroll said the organization discourages using their reviews in book challenge procedures, but as a parent herself, she understands why other parents would be worried about the media their children are finding. With increased accessibility for children to screens and the internet, the American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children and teens are spending an average of seven hours a day on entertainment media. Caroll said review services like Common Sense should be used to promote a dialogue in the home.
“I know people are concerned about the entertainment that their kids are consuming,” Caroll said. “I think my approach, and our approach as an organization, is just that your kids are going to come across entertainment content that they're not ready for, and that you don't think they're ready for, and we can give you the tools to have that conversation, and to learn from it.”
Caroll remarked that when school and library boards make decisions on what content is available for others, it takes away an opportunity for parents and children to communicate and cuts off what she believes can be very important learning questions.
“‘Why do you think the main characters, even though they're 15, 16, 17, why do you think they decide to have sex?’ Like, 'Why is this story relevant?' Is the most important question I think a parent could ask a kid,” Caroll said.
These conversations about certain media can empower parents to have discussions with their kids about things like moral decision-making, Caroll said, while book bans take that opportunity away from other families. A Sept. 2023 survey by EveryLibrary and Book Riot reported 74% of respondents “agree” or “somewhat agree” that book bans infringe on their right to make decisions for their children.
“We really believe that books, in particular, but you know, any kind of media can be a place where families can grow their relationships, can sort of tease apart and discuss what their values are, and really open up conversation and growth,” Caroll said.
The priorities of parents, schools, and lawmakers
Back at the Lubbock ISD School Board of Trustees meeting, Board President Nancy Sharp returned attention to the Administration Building’s broken water main.
“We've spent a ton of time talking about library books, and it's an important subject, but in the big picture we've got a huge responsibility, and that's to educate kids,” Sharp said. “When the water main breaks and the sound system has been in and out all day, it's because we have aging infrastructure, because we don't have the money to do the repairs that we need to do and take care of our teachers.”
In 2025, Texas lawmakers passed billions of dollars in added funding for public schools with Senate Bill 2, but many districts are still struggling.
Board trustee John Weddige is a Lubbock ISD parent, and he said the district’s library advisory procedure was designed to follow state law.
“To say that we are somehow delaying or obfuscating this process that has been made law is, is frankly a little bit insulting,” Weddige said. “I've got kids in Lubbock ISD; I don't want them reading these things, but there is a process that we follow to get these books off of our shelves.”
At the same meeting, trustees and the public heard the district's proposed finances for the coming year, unanimously approving a 2% average raise for teachers. More than 75% of the Lubbock school district’s budget is committed to payroll. Yet this budget came with another deficit – more than $22 million.
Weddige said he wants to see the concern around library content directed toward the school funding system.
“I think that the passion and effort that's been put into this could be directed elsewhere, like into talking to our legislators about public school finance and school funding. We're looking at a $22 million deficit budget that we're going to adopt tonight,” he reminded. “Let's talk about that. Let's spend some time and effort fixing that problem.”
This week, Gov. Greg Abbott announced the “Texas Classroom Commission,” made up of current and retired public school teachers.
The commission is expected to deliver recommendations to lawmakers ahead of the 90th legislative session in January 2027.