What do you get when you take a new law aimed at increasing transparency around public-school materials, add in some misplaced concerns about an existing law that prohibits providing pornography to kids, sprinkle in conflicting directions from local school leaders that provided teachers with no room to use discretion or common sense, and mix them together in a state where the governor — a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate — is often characterized by the media and his political opponents as akin to a fascist dictator?

The answer: the great Florida classroom library freak-out of 2023.

Several stories popped up in the local, national, and international media last week about teachers in at least two Florida school districts removing their classroom libraries — or completely covering them with construction paper — under the largely unfounded belief that they could be sent to jail for having unvetted books on their shelves.

According to teachers' union leaders, Florida teachers are living in a state of "fear" and "confusion" after lawmakers last year passed HB 1467, a law aimed at providing transparency about school instructional materials. The law and a newly approved state rule require trained media specialists or school librarians to vet and approve all school reading materials, and to publish a list of all media-center and classroom books on their school's website.

The law was passed after parents across the country raised concerns about sexually explicit school library books with controversial content that some viewed as pornographic.

In mid January, in response to the new state law, leaders of the Manatee County school district, south of Tampa, sent guidance to their teachers and staff about their classroom libraries. Kevin Chapman, the district's chief of staff, told National Review their intent was to direct teachers to temporarily remove any unvetted books from their classroom libraries until they could be approved by a trained media specialist. And there was urgency, he claimed, based on an existing law that said "if there was an inappropriate book found in a school, that person or persons could be charged with a third-degree felony."

"The fact is, our job is to protect our staff, protect our students, and honor the rights of parents," Chapman said. "And so, if you can be charged with a third-degree felony, we had to do something immediately to protect our staff and protect students."

That appears to be the same logic that leaders of the Duval County school district in Jacksonville used when they directed teachers to "temporarily store books until they are reviewed."

Panicked teachers took to social media during Literacy Week to complain that they were being forced to dismantle, remove, or cover their classroom libraries under the belief that the discovery of an unvetted book could lead to their arrest or the loss of their teaching license. Judd Legum, a left-wing journalist, wrote that "Florida teachers are being told to remove all books from their classroom libraries OR FACE FELONY PROSECUTION," and that "classroom libraries that are curated by teachers, not librarians, are now illegal."

1. Florida teachers are being told to remove all books from their classroom libraries OR FACE FELONY PROSECUTION

The new policy is based on the premise that teachers are using books to "groom" students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies.

🧵https://t.co/SzHzgelT64

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 23, 2023

The online British news site the Independent ran a headline declaring "Ron DeSantis ban forces teachers to remove books from classrooms." One teacher falsely tweeted that under the law, "accepting donated books from parents and community members will not be allowed."

3. Teachers in Manatee County lamented the news on social media. "My heart is broken for Florida students today as I am forced to pack up my classroom library," one Manatee teacher wrote on Facebook. pic.twitter.com/UiyhHQKHuo

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 23, 2023

Manny Diaz, Florida's education commissioner, said the social-media posts of empty library shelves and libraries covered with paper are part of a "stunt" to "create a narrative that books are being banned or that teachers are being told they can't have a classroom library."

"Those are just not facts," he told National Review on Monday.

Diaz chided a producer for a local PBS station on Twitter last week for accepting Legum’s misrepresentation of what he views as a commonsense law meant to protect kids.

More fake news from media activists too lazy to read FL law. A teacher (or any adult) faces a felony if they knowingly distribute egregious material, such as images which depict sexual conduct, sexual battery, bestiality, or sadomasochistic abuse. Who could be against that? https://t.co/E6xlXqlVev

— Manny Diaz Jr. (@SenMannyDiazJr) January 25, 2023

While training under the new law has officially been available to school media specialists only since late December, the law has been in place since last July, and school administrators have known it applied to classroom libraries since October, Diaz said. "If they're starting the process now, they're late," he said.

The freak-out in Manatee County seems to have been based on at least two things: conflicting messages from the district about what books should be temporarily removed from classroom shelves until they are vetted, and a lack of clarity about what materials could actually lead to a teacher or staff member being criminally charged.

In an interview Friday, Chapman said that the instruction to staff was to temporarily remove any unvetted books — books brought in by teachers or donated by parents or community members — that are not already in the district's Destiny database, part of the approved curriculum map, provided by the district, or included on the classroom's syllabus. A memo he provided, "Building Classroom Libraries — Elementary," instructs teachers to "Remove or cover all materials that have not been vetted."

"We put out a procedure that said, look, if there are books in your classroom that have not been vetted, that are not in our online database, that haven't gone through the media-center specialist training, haven't been vetted by the media-center specialist, yeah, you're going to have to put them aside," he said in an interview. "Either remove them, put them aside, cover them up, because we don't want you to get charged with a crime."

Chapman denied that teachers were instructed to remove or cover their classroom libraries entirely. However, when questioned by a reporter over the weekend, he produced a second memo, "Building Classroom Libraries — Secondary," that he said he hadn't previously been aware of. It did instruct teachers to "Remove or cover all classroom libraries until all materials can be reviewed."

Chapman said district leaders are acting with extreme caution because of the threat of criminal charges. But there appears to be confusion over what books or materials could actually lead to a criminal charge. The new school transparency law, HB 1467, does not address penalties. But a separate Florida law that deals with the distribution of "harmful materials" to minors, indicates that it is a felony to provide kids with "explicit" materials — depictions or recordings of "nudity or sexual conduct, sexual excitement, sexual battery, bestiality, or sadomasochistic abuse."

It is not a new law, Diaz noted, and it doesn't just apply to schools. It is illegal in Florida for a teacher — or any adult — to provide harmful or pornographic materials to minors. And it was illegal last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

So, Curious George or Frog and Toad books that accidentally slip through the vetting process are almost surely not going to end with any teachers behind bars. "They're certainly not going to be charged with a third-degree felony," Diaz said. A teacher found with unvetted books, or who repeatedly adds books to their classroom library without getting them approved, would be addressed through an administrative process, not a criminal process, he said.

But in their guidance, Manatee County school district leaders did not direct teachers to use any discretion or common sense when purging books or covering their libraries. In the district's view, unapproved Encyclopedia Brown or Ramona books are potentially just as problematic as sexually-explicit books like Gender Queer or Lawn Boy. Chapman said that is because the only people qualified to determine if an innocuous children's book is a threat are the state-trained media-center specialists. "So, unfortunately, what you and I and any person would think, you know, Frosty the Snowman should be put back on the shelf, until that book is said by a media-center specialist, that's an okay book, then it must be put aside," he said.

Diaz disagreed. He said teachers just need to apply common sense when examining their classroom libraries. "When you're looking at these, if there's something in a gray area that you think could be an issue, pull that book aside and have it vetted by the process to make sure that indeed it should be in that library," he said. "That doesn't mean that you cover your library or shut it down."

"I think this is clearly an intentional effort to cause confusion and make it look like the state of Florida, the governor, the legislature, are trying to ban books or trying to create this authoritarian state," Diaz said about the empty or covered classroom libraries.

Some teachers and staff have acknowledged the performative aspects of their response. Don Falls, a longtime government and economics teacher at Manatee High School, told CNN that he chose to cover up his books with chart paper rather than remove them because "I think it's a stronger statement to cover them up."

Chapman said volunteers are in the process of cataloguing all of the Manatee school district's classroom libraries and creating searchable lists of books for school websites. "There are schools in Manatee County that are already almost done with this process," he said, adding that through the process, "no child is going to be denied access to great reading materials."

In Manatee County, classroom libraries, which often include books brought in by teachers, are getting increased scrutiny because of the alleged felony threat facing teachers, Chapman said. He said the district isn't going through their full school libraries book by book, but is instead trying to identify books that community members have already identified as problematic.

He said there are activists who are "willing and waiting" to go after teachers and school staff in court. "I meet with them every week," he said.

Parents and community members can still donate books, which will be vetted and added to the classroom's list, Chapman said. He pushed back on the allegation that the district is banning teachers' books or removing them permanently. "This is a, look, it's going to take a few weeks, get through this process, send in classroom parents and volunteers to help you, and we'll have a list up, and all the books will be back," he said. "But emotions, politics, the shock of halfway through the school year you're being told you've got to remove some books that are not approved that you've had on your shelf your whole career, I get it."

He also denied that the district's response was in any way political or done in a way to make a point about the state's law, though he acknowledged that may be the case for "some others who have taken to Twitter." The point the district is trying to make is that "we're showing the state of Florida that we're following the law."

"This governor means business," Chapman said. "I'm doing what I'm told to do, which is comply with the law and make sure there's lists on the school websites as soon as possible. So, I'm like, 'You got it, governor. I'm doing it.'"