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NHCS teachers scramble to comply with new classroom library law

WHQR | By Rachel Keith

Published August 28, 2025 at 7:17 PM EDT

This is a slide from one of the school's HB 805 guidance presentation. This was presented the day before school started on Tuesday.

Around the state and in New Hanover County, educators returned to school this week — and some were told to immediately take down or cover up their class libraries until all the books are categorized in an online database. The orders are based on a new state law.

House Bill 805 was filed to prevent the ‘sexual exploitation of women and minors,’ but amendments added by the state Senate include language requiring online databases of the contents of school and classroom libraries.

North Carolina Governor Josh Stein vetoed the bill but it was overridden on July 30. Democratic Representative Nasif Majeed joined House Republicans to override Stein’s decision.

While the bill's requirements were not a total surprise, at the August 5 school board meeting, Superintendent Dr. Chris Barnes somewhat downplayed what this meant for educators.

“Just a couple of things for those folks who follow this, who maybe don't have lives of their own, House Bill 805 has been ratified [...] Parents will have the option to request that their students not have those books available so that may take care of some of those concerns," Barnes said.

At the same meeting, Assistant Superintendent Dawn Brinson said staff would be working to comply with the new law, but didn’t give specifics about how the rollout would work.

“We do have to add school libraries’ information materials, so we'll work on getting that done, but that will take some time to add all those books,” she said.

Fast forward to this week, teachers received emails from administrators saying students could not loan out any of their classroom books until this indexing had been completed. But the guidance was uneven — some educators were told students couldn’t “look” or “touch” books, others were told to consider covering their bookcases entirely.

For example, at Ashley High School, educators received guidance saying students wouldn’t be allowed to take home any books, which translated to “even picking up and looking at a book from your classroom library. You may temporarily remove the book from your library, cover them with bulletin board paper, or just keep an eye on them, but please remember this is State Law.”

At Winter Park Elementary, the media specialist wrote, “As this is now NC law, we are required to comply. Students are not allowed to access (touch or read) any books in your classroom until they are added to this spreadsheet.”

Guidance at Winter Park also touched on the parental opt-out form and gave instructions about creating a Google form that educators would have to individually monitor. The media specialist added, “I am happy to help you set up the form, but I cannot do it on your behalf, because the responses need to go to you.”

Superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes responded, “I did not give my principals that guidance specifically,” but he agreed that no student could check out a book until the indexing is done. He acknowledged that, “It's difficult for teachers to worry about where the line is because it's a complex issue.”

Barnes said he didn't necessarily see the discussion around HB 805 as a public issue, that it was something between him and his staff.

“I've got emails and things to them already, so that's not the concern,” he said, but he did tell WHQR that Central Office staff sent out general guidance on the bill to administrators, but said individual schools could tailor their own processes, adding that they could use volunteers, apps, or other scanning tools to assist educators. [Note: You can view this guidance at the end of this report.]

“We understand the burden on teachers; we understand the complexity of the job that they do. Please reach out for support to make sure that we can comply with this and make sure that we're not disrupting the educational process for kids,” Barnes told WHQR.

According to some teachers, Barnes’ suggestions for using apps or volunteers to help with the process didn’t make it to all educators.

Hannah Moon is the Southeastern Regional Teacher of the Year. She’s taught English at Laney High School for over twenty years.

“Personally, I emailed back and said, ‘I have 300 to 400 books in my room alone," Moon continued, "I cannot do this. I do not have the time to do this; what do you want me to do?’

Danielle Tocci is a 13-year English teacher at Hoggard High School. She has upward of 60 books in her room. She agrees that teachers are overburdened with tasks.

“I teach four different classes a day. I have a floater that comes into my room, so I have no alone time to just focus on anything except for attempting to get my regular duties done. I don't have time after school. I don't have time ever,” Tocci said.

Republican school board member Josie Barnhart wrote to WHQR that staff had the support to do this fairly easily, mentioning that the district sent out various online tool suggestions for categorizing these. WHQR has reached out to the district for this specific list and have yet to hear back.

Barnes himself acknowledged limitations with some of the scanning apps, as did Democratic school board member Judy Justice. For example, Justice said district officials told her that artificial intelligence can capture an image of a bookcase and categorize them, but sometimes they don't necessarily find all the book titles, for example, elementary-level books with thin spines (and thus, little or no readable titles).

Nonetheless, Barnhart believes, “Once the initial log is created the upkeep for this seems to be very minimal,” adding that “Kudos to the teachers who have 100s of books wanting to be borrowed day 1 of school!”

The bill mandates that the catalogues need to be done by the “beginning of the 2025-2026 school year.” It’s open to interpretation what the exact deadline is for educators to finish — and unclear what happens if they don’t. Barnes said he didn’t know either but he has to follow all state laws regardless. WHQR reached out to Senator Michael Lee, who supported the legislation, for clarity and has yet to hear back.

Barnhart did acknowledge it would have been preferable if state legislators gave at least nine weeks to comply with cataloguing directives.

Justice said of the timeline, “This is a last-minute thing, and teachers, the most important thing is to have their classrooms ready for their kids, not to be worried about monitoring book check out, because that's going to take a while to get that organized.”

Moon said while it’s important that parents know what their kids are reading, she sees the latest directives as sending the wrong message to her students.

“So with these high-interest books on my shelves, if I can't give those out, am I engaging the students as much as they need to be with books? Probably not. So what is that then doing — reducing the access that kids have to books,” she said.

One teacher at Codington Elementary asked for parental help with the categorization process as they had “hundreds of books” in their classroom.

In their emailed message to parents on Tuesday, they wrote, “this new law was effective immediately as of today. Unfortunately, this means I have to stop the kids from reading books from their book boxes on my shelves and I cannot read any books to them that are not part of our approved curriculum until I can get each and every book scanned and a catalog sent to you.”

They added, “If your child comes home talking about ‘not being able to read books anymore,’ no they are not lying and yes, we are working as quickly as we can to get this done so we can resume.”

Moon said that she’d like to see those in power focus more on things that matter.

“People who are making a lot of laws about education are very out of touch with the reality of what's happening in education right now. There hasn't been a budget passed. Teachers aren't getting raises, yet this is what they're choosing to push through. It's mind-boggling,” she said.

While Justice doesn’t like the new directive, to her, there might be an upside.

“This will prevent people like Josie Barnhart from being able to come in and say, ‘I don't want this book in school.’ This way she can say at the very beginning, ‘No, my child should not have that.’ And then it won't go any further," she said.

Barnhart was the parent behind the new limitations of the book, Blended, for students at Wrightsboro Elementary. Her student first picked it up in their teacher’s personal library. However, with the new law, if a parent finds out about a book they’d like to opt-out of, that could then trigger the process for that parent to challenge its overall removal either from the library or classroom instruction, if applicable.

Moon said in her twenty-some years teaching; she’s only had to provide an alternate assignment two times. For Tocci, she’s seen book challenges become a new phenomenon.

“We've never had an issue with any book not being appropriate, or parents not wanting their kids to read them. It wasn't even a conversation. [...] If we were reading a book that potentially contained items that were controversial, it was just a permission slip, and then all of a sudden, two years ago, everybody's up in arms about what we're reading,” Tocci said.

Below: Guidance on HB 805 compliance

HB805 Guidance and FAQ by Ben Schachtman

Here is the link to the district’s library resource, Destiny

NHCS teachers scramble to comply with new classroom library law

Around the state and in New Hanover County, educators returned to school this week — and some were told to immediately take down or cover up their class libraries until all the books are categorized in an online database. The orders are based on a new state law.

Prior reporting on book battles: