The Redlands school board gave final approval Tuesday night, Aug. 19, to a policy that makes it easier to pull library books with explicit content off shelves in addition to passing rules to ban explicit material from curriculum.
In another lengthy meeting that went late into the night, the Redlands Unified School District board voted 3-2 to pass both policies.
As has been the case for several votes on divisive issues, board members Candy Olson, Jeanette Wilson and Michele Rendler voted in favor. Melissa Ayala-Quintero and Patty Holohan voted no.
Olson said the curriculum policy is a preventative policy and the library rules would protect students from sexually explicit books. Olson said she has read books now in Redlands school libraries that as an adult she found disturbing. These should not be available to kids, she said.
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Redlands High School student Braxton Foley, right, high-fives John Beerer after telling the Redlands Unified School District board to ban pornography in books during the Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, board meeting. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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Redlands High School student Braxton Foley, right, high-fives John Beerer after telling the Redlands Unified School District board to ban pornography in books during the Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, board meeting. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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Several people in the crowd pretended to cry during Olson’s comments.
Olson said that normalizing incest and sexual abuse through books would make students “more accessible to predators who wish to abuse them.”
Ayala-Quintero said the board was taking rights away from well-informed parents to appease parents who agreed with the board’s conservative majority. Parents who give permission and understand what their child is reading should be able to make that decision.
“Why is that not enough?” she asked.
Ayala-Quintero also said the policy need a cap on costs. The district spent $20,000 on nine book challenges, she said.
On the curriculum policy, Ayala-Quintero said the conservative board was pushing a false narrative. She and Holohan called its passage a slap in the face to librarians and teachers.
“We don’t have pornography in our curriculum,” Ayala-Quintero. “The narrative that we teach our students to have oral sex is out there. I am dispelling rumors.”
The policies are major issues on which Olson and Wilson ran during the 2024 election.
Awaken Redlands, a group that focuses on restoring “traditional values” to the school board and city council, supported the policy in a Monday, Aug. 18, Instagram post. The group endorsed Olson and Wilson.
The post showed several titles the group suggested might be banned, including “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky and “Sold” by Patricia McCormick. “Sold” centers on a 13-year-old girl from Nepal who is sold into prostitution to support her family.
Wilson said the policies did not violate the rights of protected classes or a state law that prevents book bans in community libraries and schools.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1078 into law in 2023 to stop book bans in community and school libraries. The bill introduced by Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley, prohibits censorship of instructional materials and library books. It gives the state the authority to buy textbooks for students in a school district, recoup costs and assess a financial penalty if a school board violates the law.
Redlands Superintendent Juan Cabral said the new policy does not conflict with Jackson’s bill.
Rendler said children should not be subject to sexually explicit or obscene material and that board must continue to provide a safe learning environment.
“This is not about exclusion,” Rendler said. “This is about responsibility.”
The board was “grounded in academic excellence and moral clarity,” she said.
The final policy is a revision of one introduced in March. Trustees moved forward with the rule in June and Rendler was the deciding vote in July, when the board sent the policy back to administrators. Rendler said she wanted district officials to define terms such as “pornography” and to create a rubric.
The revised version passed a first reading in early August. It defines terms, including sexually explicit and obscene materials.
Sexually explicit content is described as that created with the primary intent of sexual arousal. It also is lacking in lacking significant educational, literary or artistic value. The policy defines obscene material as content that meets the legal or community standard of being sexually offensive.
Books would be examined using a ratings system to judge books by several criterion for a total of 35 potential points.
There are four categories under which books can fall. The fewer points between 0 and 10 a book receives, the fewer examples it contains of sexually explicit or obscene material. A book that is scored as 10 or below would remain on the shelf. If a book falls between 30 and 35 points, it has scored high in several categories and would be immediately pulled.
Under the policy, if a book is “perceived” as sexually explicit by a member of the public, it would be removed within three days and subject to a school board hearing within 45 days.
After the report comes in, a district review committee comprised of the superintendent, assistant superintendent of educational services and the director of elementary or secondary education would have two months to read and review the book using the rubric.
Critics of the policy said it is similar to what other school districts have approved and believe it will marginalize the LGBTQ+ community and censor educational materials.
In March 2024, the Chino Valley Unified School District board approved a policy to make it easier to get books with sexually explicit material off shelves.
Speakers blasted and applauded the board Tuesday night.
“I do not believe that you are qualified to make decisions,” Redlands teacher Katherine Hayes said.
Being a parent does not make the board qualified to make decisions on the merit of books on library shelves and in classrooms, she said. The board’s policies marginalize LGBTQ+ and minority groups, she added.
Trisha Keeling, executive director of Together for Redlands, which has opposed the board’s conservative moves, said “book banning has no place in Redlands Unified, book bans will drag Redlands Unified into lawsuits.”
Keeling said the board should keep dollars in the classroom and out of the courtroom. She said that, in the past, the board spent $20,000 on nine challenged books and asked how much the policy would cost.
“We are all going to have this weird book club and we are going to do this once a month,” Keeling said.
Cheryl Raine, a Redlands pastor, said banning books is a form of censorship that restricts access to information and ideas for political religious and moral control.
“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech, closes ears when we need to listen and makes us blind when we need to see,” Raine said.
Supporters of the policy said it was not censorship, but pulling obscene material out of school libraries.
Lawrence Hebron, a former board candidate, said trustees could not blindly trust librarians.
“They may be professional, but that does not guarantee that they will be unbiased public servants,” Hebron said.
The board should not accept the judgment of professionals without “critical analysis,” he said.
Valerie Zavis told the board “it is not a book ban; it is a book review policy.”
“Disagreeing with each other doesn’t make someone a Nazi,” Zavis said. “It is not banning. It is just common sense.”
Redlands East Valley High School student Braxton Foley applauded the board for “leading with courage.”
“Protecting kids from pornography is not censorship,” Foley said. “It is common sense. Thank you for standing up for the truth.”
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