More Than 300 Books Removed From Central Florida Schools as State Orders Districts to Pull More

Central Florida school districts have removed more than 300 books from classroom and library shelves since 2023, according to a tally by WKMG News 6, and the state is now pressing districts across Florida to pull more without waiting for parents to complain. A late-September memo from Education Commissioner Henry Mack ordered superintendents to audit their collections under a 90-day plan and warned that districts that fall short could face "corrective measures," including the loss of state funds.

Central Florida's count

News 6's list covers titles removed or discontinued in each Central Florida district between 2023 and 2026. The station did not describe how it compiled the counts.

The totals add up to 301 titles. Osceola's 21 entries are a single manga series counted volume by volume. The books were removed from school shelves; students are not necessarily barred from bringing their own copies to campus, and critics and supporters disagree over whether the removals should be called bans.

What the state's own report shows

The Florida Department of Education's annual report for the 2025-26 school year lists 620 books removed or discontinued statewide, but only 10 of Florida's 67 school districts reported any removals. Districts must report objections by June 30, and the department publishes the statewide list by Aug. 30.

Clay and Escambia together account for more than 60% of the statewide total. The two sets of numbers cover different periods and do not line up neatly. The state report counts 22 removals in Sumter County, where Sumter's high school libraries pulled titles under state laws restricting sexually explicit material, yet News 6's list shows no Sumter titles. Orange shows one removal in the state's 2025-26 report and 26 on the station's three-year list. WLRN, citing the same state data, reported 32 removals for Polk rather than 33.

The commissioner's memo

Mack's seven-page memo to superintendents and charter school leaders, sent in late September, said districts should not rely on parents to find inappropriate material. "Unfortunately, parents continue to find a shocking amount of material that fails that test," it said, referring to the requirement that books be "age- and developmentally appropriate." Mack wrote that "reactive review" is insufficient and told districts to cross-check the state's list of removed books against their own collections; a title removed elsewhere must be reviewed, though the memo says the list does not create a statewide ban.

The memo singled out Hillsborough County, where parents read passages aloud at a school board meeting in September. According to News 6, the state cited titles including Call Me by Your Name, Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts), the Kingdom of the Wicked series and 1Q84 as remaining in Hillsborough libraries. WUSF reported that the passages read at the meeting came from Beyond Magenta, A Court of Wings and Ruin and The Bluest Eye. Mack described the current process as "administrative neglect masquerading as either ignorance or ineptitude."

The 90-day plan

The memo lays out nine steps districts are expected to follow, according to Central Florida Public Media's summary published by WLRN. Among them:

• A layered audit starting with titles on the state list, frequently challenged authors and elementary books with known sexual content, then moving to middle and high school materials, classroom libraries, book fairs and donations
• A review standard that if an adult selector would not be comfortable reading a passage aloud at a public meeting, the district should lean toward keeping it out of a school library
• A Library Materials Integrity Panel that includes parents, with final decisions left to certified media specialists and the school board
• A pause on donated books and leftover book fair materials until reviewed, and a 30-day deadline for full-text reviews of flagged books
• Mid-year certification by principals that training is complete, and board briefings on flagged, removed and restricted titles

If a district is out of compliance, the State Board of Education can order corrective action, and continued noncompliance can lead to withholding of state funds, grants and Florida Lottery money.

How Central Florida districts are responding

Sumter and Lake counties are well into the review process, and Orange County Public Schools expects changes to be finalized by mid-December, according to WLRN. Orange County School Board member Alicia Farrant called the state's push "a breath of fresh air." "There should be no reason that anyone would want to expose kids to sexual content," she said. In January, the Orange board voted 6-2 to keep Do Animals Fall in Love? on shelves despite discussion of its content.

Florida author Carl Hiaasen, whose books Flush, Skink: No Surrender and Wrecker have been challenged or restricted, said removals can backfire by drawing young readers' attention. "Kids are smart," he said. William Johnson, director of PEN America's Florida office, told WUSF that many challenges target isolated passages, particularly sexual content, rather than whole works, and that the review burden falls hardest on rural districts with few librarians.

The legal fight over HB 1069

Most removals stem from HB 1069, the 2023 law that lets parents object to materials that are "pornographic" or "depict sexual conduct." In August 2025, U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza ruled in a lawsuit led by Penguin Random House that parts of the law are overbroad and unconstitutional, while leaving in place the state's challenge procedures and age-appropriateness standards. The state appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2025, arguing that choosing library books is government speech, and the appeal is pending.

What's next

Districts are now working against the commissioner's 90-day timeline, which points to a wave of new reviews and likely removals over the winter, with Orange's changes due by mid-December. Next year's state report, due by Aug. 30, 2027, will show how many more titles came off Central Florida shelves, and an 11th Circuit ruling could change what districts are allowed to remove.