Public school librarians in Ohio are raising alarms about book bans and funding cuts.

School librarians have been navigating challenges in their work as long as they鈥檝e been among the stacks in their local districts.

Proposed legislation to filter the reading choices students can make has brought concern, and budget reductions make some worry about the future of public school librarians as a mainstay in schools.

鈥淩ight now, a lot of administrators and school boards look at having school librarians as a luxury,鈥� said Gayle Schmuhl, president of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association. 鈥淚 think a lot of school librarians (in Ohio) are just hoping to stay employed.鈥�

Schmuhl said many members of the association were wondering about the future of their jobs with cuts to public school funding in Ohio and debate over property taxes that go to education.

Cuts to state public education has been talked about for decades, especially after multiple Ohio Supreme Court decisions that said .

In 2022, a model called the Fair School Funding Plan came about with bipartisan sponsorship, and was passed in what some saw as a new era for Ohio. The plan was to fund schools based on actual need from school district to school district.

The model almost made it through the six-year phase-in as planned, but Ohio Republican lawmakers abandoned it in the last operating budget.

While the most recent state operating budget included a $226 million increase in school funding, the Fair School Funding Plan model to maintain its initial calculations and keep up with inflation.

Lawmakers, however, increased private school voucher

Courtney Johnson was a school librarian in Columbus for 10 years, and seeing funding plans decrease for public schools played a part in her move back to teaching English.

She worried that though the funding priorities for schools hadn鈥檛 been spelled out, the cuts might mean she鈥檇 be splitting her time as the librarian in multiple district buildings.

鈥淚鈥檓 a person who likes to have roots in a place and go to my 鈥榳ork home鈥� every day,鈥� Johnson told the Capital Journal.

Johnson said returning to the classroom also means following an entire class through their year-long experience, and still means helping kids with reading and writing, two things that are among the passions that brought her to the profession.

鈥淓very kid has a story, even if they don鈥檛 trust that they do at first, and I love making space for them to tell their stories,鈥� Johnson said.

As a librarian, she saw the importance of parents reading to their kids, students receiving the context of other subjects in school for 鈥渇ull background knowledge鈥� to help them decode the words they鈥檙e reading, and encouraging the connection between kids and books.

鈥淲e鈥檝e known this, that when kids see themselves represented in books, they feel more connected to the books, they鈥檙e going to like reading better,鈥� Johnson said. 鈥淟ikewise, kids can see how other people live in books, and develop empathy that way.鈥�

Part of the job of the modern school librarian is discussing material with parents that they may find objectionable enough to demand it be taken off the shelves.

Sharon Hawkes, a retired librarian who is also part of the group Right to Read Ohio, decided to survey school librarians, with the help of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association鈥檚 member list.

Of those who participated in Hawkes鈥� study, 56% 鈥渆xperienced censorship incidents鈥� between 2021 and 2025.

While she only received responses from 32 school librarians, about 10% of the total school librarians in the state, she said the experiences were still indicative of a challenge in Ohio.

鈥淲e鈥檙e getting some clues about what鈥檚 going on,鈥� Hawkes said, noting that because there鈥檚 no standard survey system in each state to study censorship in libraries, the count made by organizations like the American Library Association may be less than the actual amount happening across the country.

The American Library Association reported 98 attempts to censor 355 books in Ohio from 2021 to 2024, and last year, there were seven attempts to censor 129 books, according to the ALA.

Schmuhl agreed that the study was representative of the experience she鈥檇 heard of in the state.

鈥淚 did see that school librarians in our areas were being proactive and trying to have good communication within their school districts (about attempts to ban books),鈥� Schmuhl said.

In Hawkes鈥� study, of the 16 censorship requests in Ohio between 2021 and 2024, eleven were 鈥渃hallenges without removals,鈥� while eight resulted in a book ban of some kind, and three involved 鈥渞elocations of books or other materials.鈥�

According to the researcher, librarians use 鈥渙bjective criteria鈥� in decisions about what materials are age-appropriate and relevant for the school libraries. Their training qualifies them to decide on the inventory, and to deal with challenges from parents, where the majority of material challenges came from in the study.

The majority of school librarians who responded to Hawkes鈥� survey had between 11 and 15 years of experience as the director or manager of their current library, and more than 62% had a Master鈥檚 degree in Library Science.

鈥淢ore than anything, I wanted people to understand that parents do have the right to guide what their children read and when they read it 鈥� they can approach their librarians about it,鈥� Hawkes said. 鈥淲hat they can鈥檛 do is ban books for other people鈥檚 children.鈥�

For Johnson, moving back to English doesn鈥檛 mean she鈥檒l avoid the topic of censorship.

鈥淚 think I鈥檓 going to deal with that in public schools under what we have going on right now, no matter what my position is,鈥� she said.

The legislature approved one measure to compel public libraries to relocate 鈥渋nappropriate鈥� materials out of the sight of minors, but 聽as 鈥渘ot workable.鈥�

Another bill still in consideration by the legislature would order that go to public libraries and schools to create protections to prevent 鈥渋nappropriate鈥� content from making it to kids鈥� eyes.

Opponents of the materials have said the bill could have unintended consequences, removing materials that are educational as well.

Johnson鈥檚 classroom goals include helping kids maintain reading to 鈥済et them ready for this really difficult world that we鈥檙e navigating,鈥� and bring the parents in as part of it.

鈥淲e need to work together as parents and school communities to make sure kids are achieving literacy, and we know that having access to books at home, and at school, at their fingertips, is just the beginning of it,鈥� she said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

In the last two years, have passed laws or policies limiting if or how race and gender are discussed in the schools. The details of these restrictions vary, but most are . Kentucky law, for example, states that tying racial disparities to slavery is 鈥渄estructive to the unification of our nation.鈥� Tennessee prohibits public schools from promoting notions of unconscious bias. 

When RAND U.S. teachers about these policies last spring, one in four reported that such limitations have influenced their curriculum choices and instructional practices. Replying to a follow-up question asking for more detail, many described veering away from any discussion of race and gender, regardless of whether a topic was specifically banned by law. 

鈥淭he past two years have made me nervous about teaching Frederick Douglass because I don鈥檛 think the people in my community know the difference between teaching [Black] history and teaching critical race theory,鈥� one teacher told us. Another teacher wrote this: 鈥淲hile it was never explicitly stated by my district not to discuss gender or race-related topics in the classroom, I know that my district would not have my back should I choose to add instruction on these important issues.鈥� 

For students of color, the psychological phenomenon to be concerned about is called identity threat. This is defined as feelings of fear and danger that can arise from the of one鈥檚 group through stereotypes, marginalization or discrimination.

Stanford social psychologist Claude Steele has studied identity threat for decades. In he undertook with colleagues, college students watched videos advertising a STEM leadership conference: one version had three times as many men as women, while the other showed gender parity. Sensors attached to the viewers’ wrists captured significantly faster heart rates, blood pressure and sweating among female students who viewed the video with fewer women, while men鈥檚 physiological reactions were the same in both cases. The women also reported less desire to attend the leadership conference than the men. led by Columbia psychology professor Valerie Purdie-Vaughns found similar heightened anxiety among African American professionals after viewing recruiting materials from various corporate workplace settings showing predominantly white people.

When a school eliminates courses, lessons or books featuring women and people of color, it sends a similar message of identity threat. Ruby Bridges鈥� 鈥�,鈥� Angie Thomas鈥� 鈥�” and Ashley Hope Per茅z鈥檚 鈥�,” all stories about students of color, were banned in public schools across the U.S. this year. Girls and children of color could take this as a cue that they aren鈥檛 valued or don鈥檛 belong in school 鈥� and that can create stress that harms their ability to learn. 

The most direct way to mitigate identity threat, of course, is to integrate learning material that sends messages to students of color that they matter. of at-risk ninth-graders in San Francisco, for example, showed that taking an ethnic studies course increased attendance by 21 percentage points, grade-point average by 1.4 points and credits earned by 23. That, however, is exactly the type of course that could generate the negative attention many schools and teachers wish to avoid in this turbulent moment.

Although race and gender bans are leaving many teachers uncertain about what is safe to teach, their hands are not completely tied. There are other ways to support students of color and offset identity threat.

have demonstrated that specific classroom interventions 鈥� invoking high standards, prompting students to reflect on their own core values and helping them develop optimism in the face of adversity 鈥� can give children experiencing identity threat the encouragement they need to succeed at school and beyond. The effects of these interventions include a greater sense of belonging, improved and .

Self-affirming activities, like asking students to choose their most important values from a list and explain why they are essential, can by 12 percentage points among students who complete this exercise three to four times in one year. In one , African American college freshmen were given narratives that portrayed social adversity as common but transient and short-lived, and they were then asked to write an essay鈥攁nd then make a video鈥攖hat considered their own experiences alongside those narratives. The experiment raised participants’ grade point averages, relative to a control group, and cut the achievement gap in half.  

By conveying to girls and students of color that they are individually capable of overcoming adversity 鈥� and that who they are matters 鈥� educators might soften the blow of public laws and policies that send the opposite message.