Orange County Public Schools

In 2022, section 1006.29, Florida Statutes, was amended by House Bill 1467 to require the Florida Department of Education to develop an online training program for librarians, media specialists, and other personnel involved in the selection and maintenance of library collections. This training is now live and can be accessed through the Florida Department of Education Instructional Materials webpage at https://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/instructional-materials/. It is the first bullet under "General Information."

In addition to the school Media Center, OCPS students have access to numerous online library media resources through LaunchPad. These include:

Beanstack: This tool can be accessed through the student LaunchPad and makes it easy for students to track their independent reading, earning virtual badges along the way. Students can also write book reviews and complete activities to further engage with what they have read.

Florida Electronic Library (FEL): A service of the Florida Department of State, the Florida Electronic Library offers over 190 million articles, e-books, videos and other resources.

Follett Destiny: The Follett Destiny App allows students to preview and check out both paper and ebook copies of books available in their school's collections.

Sora: The Sora App provides access to school, district and public library e-book collections in a cross-platform format, available to view on smartphones, tablets, or computers.

Virtual Library Card: The Virtual Library Card allows students access e-books and other library resources including language learning and study tools.

Westar Music: Westar Music is an expansive collection of music and sound effects licensed for student and teacher use to add sound and music to projects, videos and other student products.

Orange County Public Schools uses Follett Destiny's Library Management System to catalog all materials maintained in the school library media center. The Destiny Library Catalog can be accessed by hovering over the Media Center tab on this website and selecting the "Destiny Library Catalog" option from the dropdown menu.

The public has access to search any school's library catalog for available titles. The brief video below demonstrates how to search a school’s library catalog.

The recommended reading lists below are curated by grade band and are provided by the Florida Association For Media in Education (FAME). District-based certified educational media specialists have reviewed each of the titles on the lists. Students are encouraged to read at least three titles from their grade band's lists. Students can read and log their reading time in Beanstack, our reading tracking tool.

• SSYRA Jr
• SSYRA 3-5
• SSYRA 6-8
• Florida Teens Read

Orange County Public Schools is excited to partner with the Orange County Library System and all the resources provided through OCLS. Through the Virtual Library Card, OCPS students can access Wi-Fi at any library location, e-books, databases and other library resources. The VLC also makes it really easy for students to get a free full access library card. To find out more please click here:

• OCLS Homepage
• OCLS Virtual Library Card

Challenged Materials

Orange County Public Schools follow policy and procedures that provide guidelines for the appropriateness of Library Media Center books and materials. Each media center strives to maintain a wide range of materials in a variety of formats, level of difficulty, diversity of appeal, representation of different points of view and selected by professionally trained personnel. In the event that a book or material is challenged as inappropriate by a concerned citizen of the school community, the links below assist in the process of requesting a review regarding the appropriateness of a library media center books or materials.

• Media Center Materials Program, Selection, and Challenges
• School Board Policies

OCPS Request for Reconsideration of Media Center Materials or Other Reading Materials Form

In the event of a library media concern, parents or guardians may request the use of the library media be reconsidered following the process outlined below:

1. Parent or guardian completes the Request for Reconsideration of Media Center Materials or Other Reading Materials Form.
2. Upon completion of the form, parent or guardian submit the form to the school principal.
3. School principal convenes a committee of faculty members who can evaluate the educational value of the instructional material in question and make a decision.
4. School principal will relay decision about the instructional material to parent or guardian and provide possible options if necessary.
5. Should parent or guardian disagree with decision or options provided, the school principal escalates the concern to the district office.

Reconsideration Requests

The District must keep record of all Requests for Reconsideration that highlight the specific objections, the result of the reconsideration request, and the grade level or course for any library media materials that were removed or discontinued.

View the district’s record of all Reconsideration Requests.

District Literacy Council

In the event of a material rises to the level of a district level formal request for reconsideration, the district convenes the District Literacy Council to review the material and render a recommendation as to whether the material shall remain available or be removed from the collection. Members of a District Literacy Council include:

• A school administrator (not from originating school);
• A parent/legal guardian, who is not a District employee, or resident of the county representing the school grade (not from originating school);
• An appropriate grade level certified educational media specialist (not from originating school);
• An appropriate grade level and subject area teacher (not from originating school); and
• An appropriate grade level Student Services representative.

The opportunity to join the District Literacy Council was promoted to all stakeholders through OCPS communication channels. Randomly selected applicants were notified of their appointment to the District Literacy Council. Members of the District Literacy Council may be called upon in the event of a challenge and must complete an online orientation.

In Orange County Public Schools, each school's certified educational media specialist is responsible for curating their library collection according to district and state guidelines. In addition to the title meeting the needs of the school community, it must meet district policies for academic and general appropriateness and be available through district approved vendors. These companies provide library processing and computer records necessary to include books in the collections. Once included in an approved library book vendor catalog, the book may be considered by a certified school media specialist.

In accordance with 1006.28, F.S., "each district school board is responsible for the content of all instructional materials and any other materials used in a classroom, made available in a school or classroom library." Each school's media center page includes a link to the approved classroom library titles available in the school.

Additionally, in accordance with 1006.28, F.S., certified media specialists employed by the district are responsible for reviewing the nearly 500,000 titles in classroom libraries throughout the district to ensure adherence to library media selection criteria.

The spreadsheet linked below identifies titles found to be inappropriate for media center and classroom library collections for all grade levels. Before removing them from circulation, these titles will be read in their entirety to determine their literary value, as a whole, in the context of the Florida Statutes and School Board Policy IJL.

• Classroom Library PreK-12 “Not Approved” Titles - Pending Final Review.