Colorado Springs School District 11’s board of education updated its district policy concerning the selection and adoption of instructional materials during its regular meeting Wednesday night.

Policy IJ updates existing procedures and ensures that classroom materials will be selected by “the appropriate professional personnel in consultation with the administration, teachers, and students.” The final decision will rest with either the superintendent or designee and be subject to board approval.

It goes on to note that all textbooks and instructional materials will be available for students’ parents and guardians along with district community members to inspect.

The updated policy comes after the passage of Senate Bill 25-063, which requires school districts to establish written policies for the acquisition, retention, display and use of library resources, and for their reconsideration. It also ensures that all determinations made by the local education provider are made publicly available.

The policy also comes after recommendations from the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB). The initial draft of the policy discussed at a previous work session encompassed both school district instructional materials and library materials. Board members would then receive a recommendation from CASB to distinguish these processes in their own policies.

The library policy IJL was presented as a discussion item and will get voted for approval at a later meeting.

The new policy sparked concern from some community members over what they believed would be increased censorship in school classrooms and libraries while potentially targeting materials on historically marginalized people.

“Each person’s story in this room is important, just like all of our students’ stories are important,” said Christy Howard, a member of the coalition Authors Against Book Bans, during public comments. “And none of us has the right, in a small group, to decide whose stories can be told and who can be left out.

Ahead of the meeting, a “censorship candlelight vigil” was held outside the district administration building.

Earlier this year, the school district confirmed with The Gazette that a portion of a health textbook concerning gender and sexual identity was physically removed for being “outdated and not aligned with the district’s board-approved materials.”

Board members pushed back on public commenters and protesters’ notion that the new policy was about removing books from its schools, calling it “misinformation.”

Board Director Jason Jorgenson, who drafted the policy, said that it was written to simplify the current review and approval process and to ensure a “transparent and lawful process that does end with the board.”

“What it (the law) does require and what this policy will reflect, hopefully when we’re done, is that the materials in our schools be age-appropriate, free of obscenity or pornography, as already defined by the Supreme Court under the Miller test,” Jorgenson said. “That’s the same legal framework that every public institution in America follows.”

During a later discussion on Policy IJL, board member Julie Ott noted that the draft did not include all of the CASB recommendations and suggested adding passages that value of diversity and including historically marginalized voices that are in the current policy and previous IJ policy.

“If we’re going to change, significantly, the policy from CASB…why not bring in some of the other quality stuff? It can set us apart, as a district, to recognize that some people were and still are underrepresented and marginalized,” she said.

She also said that she was “grateful” that they were not voting on approving Policy IJL and that the board would agree to have Jorgeson and her revise its language before taking a final vote at a future meeting.