NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The New Hanover County Schools policy committee took up state-mandated changes to its book challenge process Tuesday. The changes will truncate timelines to review challenged material and transfer all decision-making to the board of education.
The policy committee — made up of board members Melissa Mason, Pat Bradford and Tim Merrick, though Merrick was absent from Tuesday’s meeting — advanced changes to policy 3210 as recommended by the North Carolina School Board Association. The policy governs the inspection of instructional and supplementary materials.
The proposed changes, matching NCSBA language, states the school board has sole authority and discretion to determine whether a challenge has merit and whether challenged material should be retained or removed.
“That’s pretty powerful,” Bradford said.
Current New Hanover County Schools policy stipulates book challenges be ruled on at the school level, with the challenger having the opportunity to appeal a school decision to the district-level review committee. If that decision is unsatisfactory, the challenger can then appeal again to the board.
The district has followed this process in its two high-profile book challenges. In 2023, the board chose to ban the book “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You” from curricula after a parent appealed its use in an AP English class.
Then in 2025, the book “Blended” was challenged at Wrightsboro Elementary. After the school and district-level committees voted to retain the book, Superintendent Chris Barnes decided to intervene before the decision was potentially appealed to the board; he restricted the book to fourth and fifth graders with parent permission.
A NHCS spokesperson told Port City Daily one challenge was made in the 2025-2026 school year, but didn’t provide the title and outcome of the challenge by press.
Essentially, the policy changes discussed Tuesday will transition the district to a recommendation-based system and changes which school personnel are involved in the challenge process.
The amended policy will be taken up by the full board of education at a future meeting for final vote.
However, the board does not have much choice in whether to pass the updated policy. Language tucked into the General Assembly’s budget, passed in July, mandates all school districts follow the uniform process now outlined in statute.
The state requires each school district to establish an 11-member Community Media Advisory Committee made up of, at minimum, three principals, three teachers and three media coordinators from an elementary, middle and high school, along with two parents, one from an elementary school and another from a middle or high school. All members are to be appointed by the superintendent.
The state law asserts book challenges must now be sent straight to the board, which will direct review of the material to its Community Media Advisory Committee. The committee must then hold a hearing on the challenged material within two weeks of the challenge’s filing.
At the committee hearing, the challenger must be allowed to present their case; the committee can also request other district employees provide additional information.
Within two weeks of the hearing date, the committee will deliver a recommendation to the school board. If a committee is recommending the removal of a book from curriculum, it must determine the material is either:
- Obscene
- Inappropriate to the age, maturity, or grade level of the students
- Not aligned with the standard course of study
The board must then vote on the recommendation at its next board meeting.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Mason said she foresaw a challenge being that board members are no longer involved in the hearing process, and thus any questions they have will have to come after the advisory committee’s recommendation.
When the book “Stamped” was challenged and appealed to the board in 2023, the board held a hearing where both the challenger and school employees involved with the review of the book could answer questions before the board ultimately made the decision to ban the book from curriculum.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, Bradford remarked the timeline was “fast,” to which Barnes agreed, adding the time stipulations would be “challenging.”
Port City Daily asked each board member their opinion on the changes and if they had concerns about the implementation of the new rules, particularly the timeline.
After publication, Bradford told Port City Daily she was comfortable with the new changes.
“Board members are elected by and accountable to the voters of this county, and decisions about what is on our districts’ shelves should rest with the people who answer to parents,” Bradford said. “That is what the law now requires, and it is also good policy.”
Merrick said he didn’t think the timing outlined in the policy changes would be an issue unless there is a “malicious attack on our school system by extremist groups putting in multiple titles at once.” He shared an email forwarded by Gail Major from the book-monitoring organization Pavement Education Project urging the public to challenge instructional and library material.
“I trust that most parents understand that our educators are trained professionals who do not bring a political agenda, but rather a sincere desire to educate our students,” Merrick wrote in an email to Port City Daily.
Merrick indicated he had been satisfied with the district’s current process.
The district’s current policy stipulates material removal for obscene and age-inappropriate material; it also allows for removal for material deemed “educationally unsuitable,” though the new state requirements take that concept further in requiring the material to relate to the state’s “standard course of study.”
Library books, however, must be judged only on the first two criteria. While boards of education have authority over what materials teachers use to meet state educational standards, the Supreme Court has ruled school districts have less authority over selection and removal of library books; therefore, it cannot do so based on the distaste of certain subject matter or because a book’s topic isn’t covered by a state standard.
As is current NHCS policy, parents do have the ability to restrict their child from checking out specific titles.
Per language recommended by the school board association, the updated policy also encourages parents to resolve their concerns about books and other materials informally, particularly if their desire is to place restrictions only on their child and not others. The first step in this process is discussion with the child’s teacher, then with the principal; if neither are satisfactory, the proposed policy then points to filing a formal grievance.
As for the school-level committees previously charged with reviewing book challenges, these committees will still be involved in the material selection process, as outlined by policy 3200. This policy is also subject to changes per the state law, though this is mostly around the definition of instructional materials versus supplementary materials.
Per changes to the policy also advanced by the committee Tuesday, the district will no longer put books and other materials into three categories — instructional, media and supplementary. Rather, all materials not part of instruction, such as textbooks or novels read in class, will fall into the supplemental category.
School level committees — what NHCS calls media technology and advisory committees — will also still be consulted when reviewing school collections to ensure materials remain in good condition and relevant to the student population.
As for the change in the challenge process, district staff told board members Tuesday they are drafting a form for parents and community members to use; the form would be submitted to the board to trigger the challenge process.
The policy changes to 3200 and 3210 are likely to be added to the October board meeting agenda.
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