New NC law requires teachers to publicly list all the books in their classrooms
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- New NC law mandates public catalogs of both school and classroom library books.
- Wake County begins logging 10,000 classrooms to meet House Bill 805 compliance.
- Parents gain tools to block student access to books via digital opt-out systems.
North Carolina school districts are scrambling to comply with a new state law requiring them to publicly list the titles of all the books that teachers have in their classrooms.
The new law requires school districts to have a publicly accessible online catalog of every school’s library books, as well as allow parents to identify which books their children can’t borrow. What makes the new requirement more challenging, school officials say, is that lawmakers defined school library books to include classroom library collections maintained by teachers.
In Wake County alone, the district is in the process of cataloging the books in around 10,000 classrooms.
“We’re talking about individual classroom collections across the entire district, so that’s going to require a little bit of upfront work,” Drew Cook, Wake County’s assistant superintendent of academics, told school board members last week.
Groups that support the new law are pressing school districts to comply as soon as possible. In addition to the library books provision, House Bill 805 includes requirements such as allowing parents to file religious-based objections to exempt their children from specific classroom discussions, activities or assigned readings.
“Wake County Schools must comply with the law, not ignore it,” Becky Lew-Hobbs, Wake County chapter chair of Moms for Liberty, said at the Aug. 5 school board meeting. “HB805 is not optional. It’s binding, effective and enforceable.”
Lawmakers expand definition of school library books
Prior to the law, school districts like Wake County already had websites where people could search what books are found in each school’s library.
But legislators expanded the definition of school library books in House Bill 805 to include “electronic, print and nonprint resources, excluding textbooks, for independent use by students and school personnel outside of the standard course of study for any grade or course.”
“Library books may be held in a formal school library or in a classroom,” the law reads.
Many teachers maintain classroom libraries of books their students can read.
The school library catalog requirement only applies to traditional public schools. Lawmakers didn’t mandate this requirement for charter schools.
Schools need more time to catalog classroom books
House Bill 805 became law on July 29 over the veto of Democratic Gov. Josh Stein.
Stein had called the bill “mean-spirited” because it includes wording such as saying North Carolina recognizes only two sexes and gender identity won’t be treated the same legally or biologically as sex.
In the month since the veto override, Wake County added to the bottom of each school’s website a link called “School Library Catalogs.” It takes the public to a site where they can search each school’s library catalog. There’s also a link where parents can digitally mark the books their children can’t borrow.
What Wake says will take longer is including all the books in each classroom. No firm timeline was given at last week’s school board policy committee meeting.
“We’re in the process of creating a kind of step-by-step process for what it looks like for teachers, for schools,” Cook told school board members.
Once the work is done, Cook said, people will be able to digitally search what books are in classrooms.
The school board will vote Sept. 16 on policy revisions that say parents will need to submit a request in writing to the principal and teacher listing what books their children aren’t allowed to borrow from a classroom library.
A similar situation is happening in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. The district says the school library catalogs are already available online, but they’re still working on how to get the classroom books added.
Fight over what’s appropriate for school library books
The requirement to catalog the books in classrooms is the latest chapter in the ongoing battle over what books are appropriate for children to read in schools. Republican lawmakers said the legislation would help give parents more control over their children’s education.
Groups such as Moms for Liberty and the Pavement Education Project have accused public schools of having age-inappropriate books in school libraries. Targeted books have typically contained scenes describing sex and/or included LGBTQ+ characters.
The Pavement Education Project says it’s in the process of developing an opt-out form for parents to restrict specific authors or titles. The group has already created forms for parents to use to opt their children out of assignments for religious reasons.
School librarians, as well as a number of teachers, have spoken out in favor of having diverse books.
This story was originally published September 2, 2025 at 6:30 AM with the headline "New NC law requires teachers to publicly list all the books in their classrooms."
