Help us improve in just 2 minutes—share your thoughts in our reader survey.
Recalls related to K-12 public school book policies
| School Boards & |
| Education Policy |
 |
School board elections 2025 • School board recalls 2025 |
• How school choice affects rural districts • K-12 cellphone policies |
Conflicts in school board elections |
Click here to subscribe to Hall Pass |
This page tracks school board recall efforts related to K-12 public school library and book collection policies. Recalls are the process of removing a member or members of a school board from office through a petitioned election, instead of during a regularly scheduled election.
During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts emerged in schools over topics like race in education and sex and gender in schools. Library books and district book policies became focal points, as some parents, community members, candidates, and others raised concerns about material available to school-age children.[1] Others said the push to remove books from classrooms and libraries — what some called book bans[2] — was rooted in prejudice against marginalized communities.[3]
As of July 2025, Ballotpedia has identified three recalls in which school book policies played a central role. One of those efforts went to a vote, resulting in a successful recall, while two did not go to a vote.
On this page you will find:
- A list of all recalls we're tracking related to district book policies
- Information on concluded recalls
- Background and arguments about district book policies and school library curation processes
- A summary of Ballotpedia's recall coverage at all levels of government
The following table includes recalls related to school library policies or book removals.
| Recall | Reason for recall | Status | Election date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karl Frisch recall, Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia (2024) | The recall effort started after school board member Frisch was sworn into his second term on the board in December 2023, using five books with LGBTQ themes. | Did not go to a vote | N/A |
| Misty Cox recall, Mingus Union High School District, Arizona (2024) | The recall effort began after school board member Misty Cox requested that Superintendent Mike Westcott remove six books from the school district's library. | Did not go to a vote | N/A |
| Terri Cunningham-Swanson recall, Plattsmouth Community Schools, Nebraska (2023-2024) | The recall effort began after the school district removed several books from school libraries pending a review. | Recall approved | January 9, 2024 |
Completed recalls
Terri Cunningham-Swanson recall (2023-2024)
On Jan. 9, voters in the Plattsmouth Community Schools district in Nebraska recalled Terri Cunningham-Swanson, a school board member first elected in 2022. The vote was 62.2% in favor of recalling Cunningham-Swanson and 37.8% opposed. Recall supporters filed the recall paperwork after Cunningham-Swanson called for a formal review of several books in the school library.
Cunningham-Swanson said the books had "very graphic sexual content. And I do mean graphic. The list of books is on the website, too. Parents can check them out for themselves. Then go to a parent-run website, such as booklooks.org or ratedbooks.org to read the content of these books."[4][5][6]
The board established a committee to review 52 books. On Nov. 14, the committee recommended the removal of one of the 52 books from the library. The board voted 8-1 in favor of the recommendation.[7]
Recall supporter Ryan Michael Whitmore said, "Terri has decided to push an extreme personal agenda that will be a burden on the staff and taxpayers. The agenda is to remove materials that are related to LGBTIA+, showing certain minorities in a positive light and showing Christianity in a negative light."[6]
Background and arguments
Over 95% of K-12 public schools had libraries in 2017, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.[8] School book collections, including library catalogues, are primarily set at the district level. According to the American Library Association, "Although the Board of Education or governing authority is legally responsible for the resources used in a school, it delegates the selection of the library’s resources to its professional school library personnel."[9] The process school librarians use to curate library catalogues varies by district and school and sometimes includes input from teachers, administrators, and community members, according to a 2023 study conducted by the Cato Institute.[10]
In a 2016 survey, the School Library Journal found that 59% of the 574 school librarians who responded said their schools had a book selection policy.[11]
The question of what constitutes a school library book ban has been a source of disagreement. Because school libraries are finite spaces, library curators make decisions about which books to include in the catalogue and which to leave off. Is it a ban if a curator removes a book to make room for a newer title? What about if a parent or school board member says a book is inappropriate for students and requests that it be removed or restricted?
PEN America, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to "defend writers, artists, and journalists and protect free expression worldwide," defined a book ban as:[12]
| “ | any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished. Diminished access is a form of censorship and has educational implications that extend beyond a title’s removal.[13] | ” |
PEN America tracked and catalogued instances of what it described as book bans and censorship in schools in the 2022-2023 school year.[14] According to the organization:[14]
| “ | During the first half of the 2022-23 school year PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 unique titles, an increase of 28 percent compared to the prior six months, January – June 2022. That is more instances of book banning than recorded in either the first or second half of the 2021-22 school year. Over this six-month timeline, the total instances of book bans affected over 800 titles; this equates to over 100 titles removed from student access each month.[13] | ” |
PEN America listed the following as the most banned books in the first half of the 2022-2023 school year:[14]
- Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
- Flamer by Mike Curato
- Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
- The Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood
- Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Some writers disagreed with PEN America's methodology. Writing in National Review, Abigail Anthony said PEN America's definition of a ban was too broad. Anthony wrote:[15]
| “ | The relevant question is not precisely how many books are banned. Instead, the question is what materials should be available to students. We can — and should — have respectful debates about what content is appropriate for what ages. But PEN America isn’t interested in those debates. The organization tailors its methodology to produce misleading statistics in the service of disparaging Republicans, while misrepresenting the books in question to frame their objectionable content as unremarkably generic.[13] | ” |
The Manhattan Institute's Dave Seminara said:
| “ | In fact, progressive librarians already practice a form of book banning by not ordering books seen as "conservative," ordering very few copies of them, or not featuring them prominently compared with liberal titles. For example, the public library system in Pinellas County, where I live, owns no copies of Johnny the Walrus, a children’s book by Daily Wire contributor Matt Walsh, though it has nearly 8,000 reviews on Amazon and a 4.9-star average rating. But the system has seven copies of Let’s Talk About It, a graphic novel by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan featuring sexually explicit images and themes, as well as copies of every other prominently "banned" young adult book.[13] | ” |
Hall Pass debates
The following lists some different perspectives on school library book policies. These arguments were first featured in Hall Pass, Ballotpedia's weekly newsletter on school board politics and education policy. Click here to subscribe or read archived editions.
Ballotpedia's school board recall coverage
- See also: School board recalls
School board recalls are tracked once recall paperwork is pulled. Ballotpedia covers recalls in school districts of all enrollment sizes as long as information is available.
The chart below details how many recall efforts were tracked each year. The 2025 numbers were current as of July 22, 2025.
Note: If a recall effort spanned multiple years, it was counted each year.
Ballotpedia's recall coverage (including recalls for offices other than school board)
- See also: Political recall efforts
From 2010 to 2024, Ballotpedia covered an average of 219 recall efforts against an average of 356 officials per year. Those recalls saw a 17% success rate.[16] The highest success rate happened in 2011 when 83 of the 308 officials targeted for recall were removed from office in a recall election, a success rate of 27%. The lowest success rate happened in 2021 when 25 of the 545 officials targeted for recall were removed from office in a recall election, a success rate of 5%.
As of June 20, 2025, Ballotpedia had tracked 158 recall efforts against 219 officials. As of that time, 21 of the officials targeted for recall had been removed from office in a recall election, a success rate of 10%. Four officials defeated a recall election to stay in office.
The chart below shows how many officials were included in recall efforts as well as how many of them defeated recall elections to stay in office and how many were removed from office in recall elections from 2010 to June 20, 2025.
Subscribe to Hall Pass to stay up to date on school board politics and education policy
Hall Pass is a weekly newsletter designed to keep you plugged into the conversations driving school board politics and education policy. We bring you a roundup of the sharpest education commentary and research from across the political spectrum and the latest on school board elections and recall efforts.
Below are the three most recent editions:
See also
- Recall overview
- Laws governing recall
- School choice in the United States
- School board elections, 2025
- School Boards and School Board Elections
Footnotes
- ↑ NHK World, "US political divide escalates over books and school boards," April 30, 2023
- ↑ American Library Association, "Banned Book FAQ," accessed March 23, 2024
- ↑ Literary Hub, "The Purpose of Book Bans Is to Make Queer Kids Scared," May 13, 2022
- ↑ News Channel Nebraska River Country, "Books removal causes stir in Plattsmouth," May 9, 2023
- ↑ KETV 7 ABC, "Plattsmouth High School librarian resigns over controversial book policy," May 10, 2023
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 News Channel Nebraska, "Second petition filed against Plattsmouth school board member," September 21, 2023
- ↑ News Channel Nebraska, "Contested books back on school shelves, recall election set for 2024," November 14, 2023
- ↑ Boston University, "Politics and Children’s Books: Evidence from School Library Collections," accessed February 28, 2024
- ↑ American Library Association, "Responsibility for Selection," January 2018
- ↑ Cato Institute, "Are Public School Libraries Accomplishing Their Mission?" October 17, 2023
- ↑ School Library Research, "A Content Analysis of District School Library Selection Policies in the United States," November 2021
- ↑ PEN America, "Book Bans: Frequently Asked Questions," accessed March 18, 2024
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 PEN America, "Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools," accessed March 18, 2024
- ↑ National Review, "There Is No Book Ban-demic," March 18, 2024
- ↑ The success rate was calculated by dividing the number of recalled officials by the total number of officials who were targeted for recall.
| ||||||||||||||||
