Spring ISD, Klein ISD and every other Texas school district could face tougher state rules on library books after a Texas Senate hearing raised questions about whether districts are following a 2025 law.
State senators on the Senate Education Committee heard Oct. 7 that an estimated 80% of Texas school districts have not removed any books under Senate Bill 13 (SB 13), the law that shifted control of library materials from librarians to school boards. The figure came from conservative activist Bonnie Wallace, who shared it on a podcast with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. It has not been verified by the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
State Sen. Brent Hagenbuch of Denton cited Wallace's claim and questioned whether the law is working.
"It sounds like, if this is accurate, the law's not really having the effect that we had hoped," Hagenbuch said at the hearing, as first reported by Houston Public Media. "I think part of the issue is that the law really doesn't address the books that are on the shelves."
SB 13, signed into law in June 2025 after passing the House 81-48 and the Senate 23-8, gave school boards final say over library materials. It also allowed parents to petition for School Library Advisory Councils. A council can be formed if 50 parents or 10% of parents in a district, whichever is less, sign a petition. The law added at least 60 days to districts' book-purchasing timelines, according to the Texas Library Association.
Shannon Trejo, TEA deputy commissioner for the Office of School Programs, told senators that many districts lack online library catalogues. A full review of existing shelves, she said, would be a heavy lift.
Committee chair Sen. Donna Campbell said the state may need to impose new requirements. She called local control "good until it's 'loco' control" and said the state sometimes has to "step in with guardrails."
Not everyone agreed. Laney Hawes, founder of the Texas Freedom to Read Project, testified that books like "Hatchet" have been pulled unnecessarily. She argued SB 13 leaves decisions to local districts and parents, not the state.
The debate has already touched the Spring area. In the November 2025 Klein ISD school board elections, two candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty lost their races, according to Publishers Weekly. Neither Spring ISD nor Klein ISD has made a public statement about its SB 13 compliance or library review process.
The hearing follows pressure from Patrick, who said in August 2026 that he would push legislation to dock a district's state performance rating by one letter grade if a single book on the state's list remained on shelves. Patrick said nearly 2,200 titles are on what he called the state's "dirty book list," according to KHOU.
Statewide, a Publishers Weekly report on PEN America data recorded more than 8,100 book removals in Texas during the 2025-26 school year. PEN attributed the spike largely to SB 13 and found some districts are using AI tools to flag titles, with chatbots sometimes targeting books simply because they had been banned elsewhere.
The Texas Legislature is scheduled to convene its next regular session in January 2027, when new legislation tightening the law could be introduced.
