NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — While originally scheduled to be released last December, earlier this month, the Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission came up with guidance for how schools should treat challenged books.

After the 2022 “Age-Appropriate Materials Act” was passed, the commission was tasked with coming up with suggested guidelines for how schools should handle books that someone wants to take off the shelves.

The guidelines say that schools employees should keep a list of all materials “in the school’s library collection” and they should be, “appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access them,” according to the document.

“The determining factors will be based on an assessment of any mature themes or content (i.e., violence, sexual content, vulgar language, substance abuse),” the guidelines specify.

The guidelines suggest that after an employee, student or parent/guardian requests a book be removed, a school committee of teachers, librarians and parents read the material in its entirety and come up with recommendations.

Those recommendations will be presented to a local board of education or public charter school that will decide if the material is appropriate.

That process can be appealed to the Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission, which will review all the relevant materials but is not required to read the material in its entirety.

The material can’t be appealed again for three years after the initial review.

The guidelines also state that individuals can not file more than two appeals in a year.

Read the full guidelines HERE.