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California Education Officials Deliver a Win for Parents' Rights to Challenge Explicit Books

California Family Council Staff : Oct 20, 2026
California Family Council

[CaliforniaFamily.org] For years, parents across California have found pornographic, sexually explicit books on the shelves of their children's school libraries. Many have taken their concerns to school board meetings, some reading passages aloud from the very books available to students. Often, the words made officials uncomfortable because of their graphic nature, but that was the point. Yet many of those same officials defended the books as literature children need access to. (Image: Pexels)

Some districts removed the books. Many more brushed parents aside, and activists branded them "book banners."

Capitol Resource Institute, led by Karen England, has been pushing back. Through its Take Back the Classroom project, the group spotlights objectionable titles and promotes model policies that give school districts a clear way to remove sexually explicit material without violating California's anti-discrimination laws.

In 2023, the Chino Valley Unified School District board, led by President Sonja Shaw, adopted a version of that policy. When an activist asked the California Department of Education to punish the district for it, the department reviewed the complaint and threw it out, finding nothing in it that established a violation of state law.

But the activists are not done. On August 17, 2026, the same parent behind the first complaint, Kristi Hirst, filed a second one, this time drafted by the Los Angeles law firm Public Counsel and joined by another parent, Tracie Perez. The new filing made headlines in the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Bulletin, and EdSource, which called it new legal scrutiny for the district. The department has confirmed it received the complaint and is reviewing it. What the headlines did not lead with: the state had already rejected Hirst's first attempt, and her lawyers rewrote the case to try again.

A policy built for parents

On October 19, 2023, the Chino Valley board adopted a policy affirming "the fundamental right of parents and guardians to direct the care and upbringing of their children." Under it, parents, students, staff, and district residents may file a complaint against a library book they believe contains "sexually obscene content considered unsuitable for students." The principal removes the challenged book, and the policy calls for a board hearing within forty-five days on whether to remove it permanently from all district facilities.

The district's administrative regulation, revised that November, includes an explicit safeguard: "The Board of Education shall not remove books because they disagree with the ideas of an author." The standard is sexual content, not viewpoint.

Chino Valley's policy grew out of a model written by Karen England's Capitol Resource Institute through its Take Back the Classroom project. Key passages match nearly word for word: the opening affirmation of parental rights, the list of who may file a complaint, the three-day notice to the superintendent, the forty-five-day public hearing, and removal from every school within five days of a board vote.

The current model, updated in 2026, goes further than what Chino adopted. It defines sexually explicit material as depictions or written descriptions of sexual acts and visual depictions of nudity, while exempting science materials and classical art. That definition answers one of the activists' main complaints, that Chino's policy offers no standard for what counts. The model also guarantees at least thirty minutes of public comment before any board vote.

The model also streamlines the process. It does not require a hearing on every challenged book. If the principal agrees a book should go, it comes out of all district schools. A public hearing happens only when the principal, and then the superintendent, decline to remove it.

Books challenged in Chino included Push, a high school novel its own publisher describes as centering on a teenage girl repeatedly raped by her father, and It's Perfectly Normal, a graphic sex education book for 10-year-olds.

The state's answer

In December 2025, Chino Valley parent and activist Kristi Hirst, co-founder of Our Schools USA, filed a complaint with the California Department of Education. She claimed the district's book removals violated Assembly Bill 1078, the 2023 law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed to restrict book removals.

The department's Direct Investigations Office reviewed it and closed the case. Its letter to Hirst stated that "the complaint does not allege matters that, if true, would establish a violation of the AB 1078 statutes that are within the scope of the UCP."

The department also rejected the discrimination claim. It noted that the complaint "does not allege different treatment of concerns about library books with sexual content that do not have LGBTQ themes." In other words, removing sexually explicit books is not discrimination simply because some of those books have LGBTQ characters. The department concluded: "Because the complaint is not within the scope of the UCP, the CDE will take no further action on it."

The dismissal was not a court ruling, and it did not formally declare the policy lawful. But it matters. California's Department of Education, under Superintendent Tony Thurmond, has made fighting so-called "book bans" a priority. Its own investigators examined the activists' best arguments and found nothing in them that established a violation.

Capitol Resource Institute, led by Executive Director Karen England, called the dismissal "a major victory for parental rights and local school districts" in an October 13 message to supporters. "This development demonstrates that school districts can establish procedures for reviewing library materials and responding to parental concerns without automatically violating California law," the group wrote. "The policy is available. The process works. And parents are making a difference."

"For three years, activists have told every school board in California that protecting kids from porn in the library is illegal," said Greg Burt, vice president of California Family Council. "The Department of Education looked at the complaint against Chino Valley's policy and found nothing in it that established a violation of state law. That should give every school board in this state the confidence to act. Don't wait. Adopt a clear policy, follow it to the letter, and get sexually explicit material out of the hands of children."

Round two

Hirst's second complaint, filed with Public Counsel, rebuilds the case around the very gap the state identified. It now argues the district kept the Bible and John Green's Looking for Alaska while pulling books with LGBTQ themes.

The complaint is also, in effect, an admission that the policy is working. Parents have challenged fifteen titles since it passed, and those books came off the shelves at the schools where they were challenged. Public Counsel's central grievance is that the board never held hearings on them. It points to one sentence in the policy: after a challenged book is pulled, "the Board shall then hold a public hearing within forty-five days."

Karen England, whose model the policy is based on, says that reading misses how the process was designed. The district's administrative regulation, adopted alongside the policy, sets up two steps. The principal first reviews the challenged book and pulls it if it contains sexually obscene content. The complaint moves to the superintendent and onto a board agenda only "if the challenged issue is not resolved" at the school. "There is not supposed to be a hearing unless the district wants to keep the book," England said.

"Librarians and principals remove books that aren't appropriate for children all the time. That's their job," Burt said. "A school library is not a public bookstore. Pulling graphic sexual content off a junior high shelf is ordinary collection review, not censorship. It shouldn't take a board vote to keep pornography away from twelve-year-olds."

The new theory has holes. The complaint's own exhibits contradict it. Its text says Looking for Alaska has no LGBTQ themes, while its Exhibit 11 tags the same book "LGBTQ+, Gender, Sexual Orientation." And Looking for Alaska was pulled from junior high and elementary libraries after complaints, the same treatment given other challenged titles. The pattern is about age, not identity.

The Bible "challenge" was never serious. It came from a resident who opened by calling book removal "abhorrent" and asked the district to remove "the Bible, in all its forms" to make a point.

Board President Sonja Shaw, now a candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, has defended the policy throughout. She told the Los Angeles Times it ensures that "sexually explicit material is not placed in the hands of children in our schools." She also framed the fight as bigger than one district. "I believe the larger issue is whether parents are going to remain the primary decision-makers for their children or whether Sacramento continues to chip away at that role," Shaw told the Times, as reported by EdSource.

What parents and school boards should do

Scripture warns that anyone who causes a little one to stumble would be better off with a millstone around his neck (Matthew 18:6). Protecting children's innocence is not censorship. It is the basic duty of every adult entrusted with their care.

The lesson from Chino Valley is twofold. A clear, content-based policy can withstand challenge. And boards should make sure their policy and regulations say the same thing, then follow them every time, because opponents will seize on any gap.

Ask your local school board whether it has a policy for challenging sexually explicit library books. If it doesn't, urge board members to adopt one. Capitol Resource Institute's model policy is available at TakeBackTheClassroom.com. Then show up and stand with the parents who are willing to speak. Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here