RatedBooks helps parents choose books to challenge and offers paid checks of library book lists. In York County, South Carolina, the public library board added its reviews to book-selection rules. The examples below separate private offers from official decisions.
Maryland: Moms for Liberty used rating sites to choose books to challenge
Carroll County, Maryland’s local paper reported that Moms for Liberty used BookLooks, RatedBooks and Common Sense Media to choose school books to challenge.
By fall 2023, 56 to 59 titles were under review. The chapter’s vice chair acknowledged: “Most of the books [under review] were not read by our members.”
A paid service to screen a library’s entire book list
In an S&S Apps tutorial, RatedBooks founder Brooke Stephens offered to compare entire library lists with NBRI, the National Book Rating Index of reviews and ratings.
In the video, “How to Use the NBRI,” Stephens quoted a price of $100 per library, “whether it’s a school or a community.”
A separate store check on August 17, 2026, found a pricing exception: the option for up to 1,000 schools displayed $10,000, rather than the $100,000 implied by that rate. See the recorded store prices.
Four more entries from the timeline, in date order.
Incorporation email appears on a Utah Parents United page
The email address that later appears as the contact on RatedBooks.org’s 2025 incorporation papers was already on Utah Parents United’s “LaVerna in the Library” page, months before the ratedbooks.org domain existed. (The domain itself is registered to a California app developer of record.)
Stephens on video: UPU board member, StoryLabs name tag
Brooke Stephens appears in a “Laverna in The Library” video. She says she is on the Utah Parents United board. Her name tag on screen says StoryLabs.
“…All Boys Aren't Blue. And I read that and I'm like, what? This isn't a kid's book [the channel's auto-captions garble this phrase; the two passes do not agree on it], what? And I was horrified. And I like posted it, you know, because I'm on the board of Utah Parents United. And so I posted that. I'm like, yeah, that shouldn't be happening.”
At a Utah legislative committee meeting on H.B. 374, the presenter yields the floor: “She is a mom who then started her own website... It’s called ratedbooks.org. If you want to know what books are in your school... you can go to the website ratedbooks.org.” A committee member replies: “And rated books, I’m glad I can search for it.”
Four quotes from one talk to a national group: the source of the ratings, the price, the rule about which words to use, and the districts she keeps secret.
“They said hey, we need ratings, because you're giving us some really bad ones, some mediocre ones. So BookLooks from Florida is the one who supplies all of our ratings. I'm going to show you her page.”
“I just give them a page and they can say whatever they want up here. It costs $35 — I just made that price up — and one-time fee, just so I could manage if like a million people came at me at once.”
“Not what the left has said, is a book ban or book burning. And by the way, we try really hard never to use the terms book ban[ner], book burning, because we don't want to reinforce their lies. So what we call it is appropriate limits for kids.” (Two transcriptions differ on one word: YouTube captions hear “book banner,” machine transcription hears “book ban or.” Quoted to the agreed text.)
“We went to the school district and said, please click it so we can search the whole district at once, and they did. Now they turned it back because they're mad at us. And in other districts I went through all the schools until I found one that let me search the whole district… so I found those and keep them a secret so they don't change those settings.”
“Celebrate your wins — 'cause right after that you'll have a loss. You just keep going. Don't worry, you're on the right path. You're doing God's errand.”
Her pitch: paid placement of ratings inside library catalogs
On camera, Brooke Stephens says schools can pay to have RatedBooks ratings show up inside their library catalogs, priced by the size of the library. That is her description of the service. No district or school has been shown to have paid for it.
The Bible was challenged under the same Davis school district process. It was removed from elementary and junior high libraries, then put back at every level on appeal. Fourteen appeal-decision documents cover 52 title decisions; the Bible was the only book to get a written explanation weighing its “significant, serious value.”
“It can’t be pornography if it doesn’t have images”
A 59-second video: the ALA (American Library Association) president’s page is invoked over “queer material,” “it’s not like this is banning books” is conceded, and the argument lands on images in graphic novels. The speaker is identified as Brooke Stephens by ear. No speaker-labeled record confirms it.
Every moment above is one card in the records below, which hold all 944 dated records from 1956 to 2026.
Background 1956–2020
1956–1968
12 records · 6 with receipts · 3 themes · 2 unverified
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Harmer introduced California SB 372, proposing a "California Motion Picture Review Board" to rate and review films; the mpaa later adopted its own rating system instead. RatedBooks/the National Book Rating Index's own rating-scale page footnotes "first introduced in 1968" and links not to MPA rating history but to notes on Harmer as this 1968 CA state senator/anti-pornography campaigner — the origin of the RatedBooks scale page's "1968" citation
10 records · 5 with receipts · 4 themes · 1 unverified
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11 records · 8 with receipts · 4 themes · 1 unverified
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10 records · 4 with receipts · 5 themes · 2 unverified
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archived pageWayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture (Jul 30, 2009) of Deseret News archive, 'Ex-devotees want to know: Where did the money go?'
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Archive copyPAL Humanitarian Services Articles of Incorporation, Utah Division of Corporations received stamp, Apr 8, 2014
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
2015–2016
14 records · 4 with receipts · 6 themes
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The Utah nonprofit later known as Empowered Parents is incorporated as Parents Empowered in Education Resources and Support, file number 9699080. Sole incorporator and initial registered agent (a company’s official contact person): a Utah private individual - not Stephens. Stated purpose: 'Help parents with children of all abilities to advocate for their child's education through coaching, training, and providing them with connections to educational resources as well as help parents uphold their parental rights in education'
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community ·
1 source
Archive copyArticles of Incorporation of Parents Empowered in Education Resources and Support, Utah file number 9699080, filed Mar 7, 2016
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
documentFollett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Corporation press release via PR Newswire, Apr 18, 2016, 'Follett Acquires Baker & Taylor'
Archive copyArticles of Amendment, Utah entity 9699080, receipt 6627528, adopted Aug 4, 2016, filed Nov 8, 2016
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
2017–2018
12 records · 5 with receipts · 6 themes
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A language-teachers association's own conference program schedules an exhibitor-sponsored session presented by both co-founders of the company that later builds the book-rating product, demonstrating their lesson-planning app to teachers
Overstock.com contributes $2,000 to Ken Ivory's campaign (Convention report), after $500 on Jan 10, 2013 and $1,000 on Sep 27, 2016, from the company's Salt Lake City and Midvale addresses. Separately, Patrick Byrne of Park City, Overstock's founder and CEO, is a Utah donor in 23 rows 2006 to 2019: $600,000 to Jonathan Johnson's 2016 campaign for governor, $200,000 to Promote Liberty political fundraising committee (2015 to 2016), $46,000 to Utah Patients Coalition (2018), $40,000 to First Freedom political fundraising committee (2013), $12,500 to the Utah Republican Party (2012), $10,000 to Carl Wimmer (2008), $5,000 to Friends of Gary R. Herbert (2011).
Utah State Board of Education regular meeting: on the ebsco K-12 shutoff, public comment split (Diane Fisher for keeping it off, Peter Bromberg/Utah Library Association for reinstating); motion by Member Stokes that the Board direct its the Utah Education Network representative to push for reinstatement once the Utah Education Network takes student-protection steps. Motion carried 8-6, with Members Belnap, Boulter, L. Cummins, Ellis, Neilson and Wright opposed.
archived pageWashington County School District (Saint George, Utah) District Policy 4220 "Review of Instructional Media", Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Nov 17, 2019
11 records · 3 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
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The 2017 ALA post that Protect Salado Kids quotes in 2026 (Tess Goldwasser, 'Intersections | glbt Book Month: Dispatch from a Small Town Librarian', ala.org/advocacy, Jun 1, 2017) first surfaces as anti-ALA material on Jun 18, 2019, two years after publication. LifeSiteNews runs 'Top US library group colludes with local librarians to sneak lgbt content to kids' at 17:01 EDT; The Thinking Conservative carries the identical headline nineteen minutes later, so the two are one event, not two pickups. MassResistance then produces a 31-page PDF, 'The Sneaky, Creepy Library', created Jul 12, 2019, and an 'ALA push behind dqsh' web page dated Oct 24, 2019. The phrase resurfaces on a 'Freedom Fighting Parents of Delco' Facebook post Aug 7, 2022, on ctfamily.org May 21, 2025, and in the Protect Salado Kids post Mar 4, 2026.
Federal+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the attestations / supported the sequence as a floor, not a census
archived pageWashington County School District (Saint George, Utah) District Policy 4220 "Review of Instructional Media", Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Nov 17, 2019
archived pageWashington County school district (UT) Policy 4220, "Review of Instructional Media," Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) snapshot Nov 17, 2019
The storylabs.online /heart page is live and self-describes heart as "A New California Sex Ed Curriculum" / "Health Education and Relationship Training", claiming chya (California Healthy Youth Act) compliance and an independent law-firm audit using the ashwg CAT tool; the same page banners the company as a finalist in the LaunchPad Language Education Technology Competition at actfl. 2019 pricing $3 student / $15 teacher / $25 classroom. The oldest product page on the domain.
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Merrilee Boyack's 2020 campaign for Utah House District 56 ("Boyack, Merrilee (2020 House-56)") reports $1,000 from Sharon Slater, Gilbert AZ, and $50 from Nicholeen Peck, Tooele, both dated Feb 18, 2020, on its Convention report; Gayle Ruzicka, Highland, gave $100 on Feb 6, 2020. The committee raised $71,275 (of which $35,001 was Boyack's own money, repaid) and spent $71,150, largely through Tactical Campaigns.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Vendors
Documented the rows and the entity-search label, read from the Lieutenant Governor's export / supported that the Gilbert AZ Sharon Slater is Family Watch International's president (the filing carries no role)
HB0408, "PORNOGRAPHY EXPOSURE PREVENTION AMENDMENTS," 2020 General Session, Chief Sponsor Travis M. Seegmiller, Senate Sponsor Todd Weiler -- amends 53G-7-1002/1003 to require local school boards adopt and enforce a policy restricting student/educator access to "Internet or online sites, databases, or networks" containing obscene or pornographic material, internally test filters at least every six months, and report noncompliance to the state school board. Introduced Feb 25, 2020, to House Health and Human Services Feb 28, 2020, returned to House Rules without a committee vote Mar 9, 2020, struck and filed as a dead bill Mar 12, 2020 -- never received a hearing or a vote.
Utah HB243 (2020) pays the person who reports, not the state. The enrolled bill, 'Warning Labels Amendments', chief sponsor Brady Brammer and senate sponsor Todd Weiler, amends 78B-6-2103 and 2104 and enacts 78B-6-2105. It creates a private notice-and-cure action: a private person serves a notice of alleged violation on the alleged violator AND on the attorney general's office; the alleged violator then has 14 days to correct and agree to pay and 30 days to deliver 'a penalty for the alleged violation in the amount of $500 per violation'; and the statute names the payee explicitly - 'The alleged violator shall deliver the civil penalty to the noticing party'. If the violator does not cure, the private person may sue for a civil penalty not to exceed $2,500 per violation plus filing fees and attorney fees. The attorney general has 45 days to declare no merit or 60 days to take the action over, and silence lets the private suit proceed. This is the statute the storylabs.online /hb243 product page cites, and it is the source of that page's $500 figure
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Vendors / Community
Documented every provision, from the enrolled bill fetched this turn / supported that the statute does not reach a school library / needs verification whether any notice was ever served, and whether 78B-6-2102 exempts schools
Documented the rows, read from the export / supported that "Jen Brown, Bountiful" is the Utah Citizens for the Constitution president of this register (city matches the 2022 and 2026 rows at BBA-1238's bundle; no other identifier) / supported that a same-day batch is one event
Judiciary Interim Committee (mtgid 17170): agenda item 4a, presentation "Protect Utah Children From Exploitation at School" by Nicholeen Peck, President of The Worldwide Organization for Women and President of Utah Empowered Families Coalition, who "discussed problems with databases used in Utah schools". Also speaking: Robert Gowans (Tooele CSD), Debi Dixon relaying Karen Broadhead, Stephanie Lauritzen, and Natalie Cline, then "candidate being considered for the Utah State School Board".
The Utah Education Network Board adopts a "Content Selection Policy" governing the Utah Education Network/KUEN broadcast and online programming. It is framed by FCC licensee rules and Corporation for Public Broadcasting requirements, names the UEN Community Advisory Council, the Utah Instructional Media Consortium and Utah's Online Library Central Coordinating Committee as sources of input, routes content complaints first to "the programming staff or Station Manager" then to a review form returned within 30 days with appeal to the Utah Education Network's Executive Director, and reserves all content decisions to "the programming department with oversight from the Station Manager and Executive Director/CEO" expressly "in order to uphold the Public Broadcasting Editorial Integrity Guidelines and Public Media Code of Integrity". This is the policy retired at the May 5, 2026 board meeting.
The Judiciary Interim Committee's own 2020 Interim Committee Report to the Legislative Management Committee lists, under "RECOMMENDED LEGISLATION FOR THE 2021 GENERAL SESSION": "1. Access to Pornography in Schools* / School Technology Amendments, Sponsor: Rep. Seegmiller, Vote: 13-1-2 -- Heard presentations from community members regarding the ability of school children to access obscene material via their school computers. Recommended draft legislation that requires digital resources provided in Utah public schools to block obscene or pornographic material." The asterisk marks it as a standing study-item-list bill file.
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H.B. 38's 1st substitute, "1st Sub. (Buff)," filed by Senate Sponsor Todd D. Weiler ("Senator Todd D. Weiler proposes the following substitute bill"), adds the evidentiary standard for the Utah Education Network to document a digital resource provider's noncompliance: "(B) a URL associated with the material; (C) a date stamped browser history from the user of the digital resource who accessed the material; or (D) a date stamped browser history of any replication of the violation" -- absent from the original Dec 16, 2020 introduced bill.
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Archive copyUnlisted video, "Nichole Sex Ed UPU", uploaded Aug 5, 2021
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
Archive copyUnlisted video, "UPU Sex Ed Brooke Stephens", uploaded Aug 5, 2021
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
Archive copyAnnual report for Utah entity 9699080-0140 filed Aug 19, 2021, then named Parents Empowered in Education Resources and Support, signed by the original incorporator
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
documentFollett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Corporation press release, Sep 1, 2021
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The same entity, 9699080-0140, changes its name: Articles of Amendment state 'The name of the corporation is: Parents Empowered in Educational Resources and Support' and 'the new name of the corporation is: Empowered Parents', adopted by unanimous board vote on Oct 26, 2021 and signed in Nov 2021. The same amendment changes Article V from 'Executive Director is hired' to 'Executive Director may be hired'
Utah · Community ·
1 source
Archive copyArticles of Amendment renaming Parents Empowered in Educational Resources and Support to Empowered Parents, Utah entity 9699080-0140, adopted Oct 26, 2021
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
archived pageWashington County school district (Utah) Policy 4220, the district site's own /print (dompdf) PDF rendering, Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture 2021-10-27T06:05:57Z
Archive copyUnlisted video, "How to find books in Utah Public School District Libraries", uploaded Nov 5, 2021
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
A Google Sheet titled 'Working List of Potentially Obscene Books To Review 2021' is captured in full for the first time. Its 'Working List' tab holds 528 rows of which 526 carry a Date Added, and every dated row falls between Nov 12, 2021 and Nov 30, 2021, a single 18-day burst. A 'Reported by:' column attributes each title to a source; the counted values include 'YA Sex Books as listed on GoodReads' (78), 'To research - LGBTQ Utah Keyword search' (64), 'mcsd Detailed list' (56), 'HRC WS Picture' (51) and 'mitl Indiana (Original)' (45). The earliest Date Added, Nov 12, 2021, is the same date our records already records for the founding of the Facebook page 'Mary in the Library Indiana'. A third tab named 'Form Responses 1' is hidden and contains only its header row, so there is no intake log, no submitter identities and no submission timestamps. A 'Laverna link' column is filled on 42 rows, all Facebook permalinks into group 353057099906284. The sheet id was already known to our records from 13 Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) captures of Utah Parents United / LaVerna in the Library pages between Nov 25, 2021 and Aug 16, 2022 and from a Sep 1, 2026 hidden-tab audit, but no capture had ever saved its contents.
Pre-history+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the sheet, its dates, its tab states and its column counts / supported that mitl is Mary in the Library / needs verification that this bears on who originated the template
archived pageQSaltLake Magazine, "Utah Parents United targets LGBTQ books in schools" (Nov 22, 2021), Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Dec 2, 2021
Archive copyUnlisted video, "Book Spreadsheet Introduction", uploaded Nov 23, 2021
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
archived pageUtah Parents United, "LaVerna in the Library" page, Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Nov 25, 2021 04:06:08 UTC
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The Utah State Board of Education Law and Licensing committee item 3.10, discussion: Library Governance Standards - where board rule R277-628 begins. Staff brought it "in lieu of recent events", a phrase written into two consecutive packet memos and never defined, and attached the UEA/uelma/ULA/ulms joint Library Book Challenge Statement. Staff offered the board a fork, guidance document or board rule, and the board directed a rule
Utah Parents United publishes a 16-minute recruitment session for the Association of American Educators, a non-union teachers' organisation, on its own YouTube channel, titled 'Teachers! Here's a professional educators' organization that will represent you and your values!'. Two AAE staff present and close by telling viewers how to join at aaeteachers.org. The pitch has three planks: liability insurance at sixteen fifty a month on a two-million-dollar policy against the NEA's one-million; that AAE's policy is issued in the educator's own name while a policy obtained through the union usually is not; and that AAE cannot legally give members' money to any political candidate or political fundraising committee, in their words 'we're not going to take your money and endorse any political candidate'. 22 views when saved.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the video, its title, date, channel and that AAE staff presented / supported (automatic transcription single pass) all quoted wording / documented as AAE's assertion every price, policy and coverage claim
10 records · 3 with receipts · 6 themes · 2 unverified
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Protect Child Health Coalition (the Protect Child Health Coalition, facilitated by Family Watch International) holds its annual conference in Dallas, TX, hosted by Texans. Speakers named in Family Watch's own report: Brooke Stephens (RatedBooks.org and BookLooks.org) cites Utah's 2022 HB374 as a success; Robin Paterson (the Colorado family behind the 2018 ebsco lawsuit) runs a panel and workshop on database-access pornography (ebsco, Gale, ProQuest); Deborah Simmons describes Texas Education 911's 13 priorities shaping the Texas GOP platform's "Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids" plank, including repealing the obscenity exemption.
Multi-state+1 · Policy / Technology
Documented the event, speakers and quoted content, from Family Watch's own conference report / supported the year, by internal consistency (HB374 cited as "this year's" passage; no exact date given in either source)
23 records · 10 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
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Archive copyUnlisted video, "How to Make Public Comment in Utah Legislative Meetings", uploaded Jan 25, 2022
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
documentFollett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Corporation press release, Feb 2, 2022
archived pageRichard Price, "Motives in Book Banning," Adventures in Censorship blog, Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Feb 11, 2022
17 records · 2 with receipts · 5 themes · 2 unverified
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Documented the emails, from the district's public-records release / documented that two of the four Drive files still resolve and are owned by that address, Drive API Sep 13, 2026
Florida+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Supported the site-creation date, which rests on reading the token field name / documented the Drive owner and dates, Drive API Sep 13, 2026 / documented the PDF dates
23 records · 12 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
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Follett (the company behind the Destiny school catalog software) publicly reversed course on a parental-control module for Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) on Apr 1, 2022, after "a week of harsh criticism -- including a Twitter firestorm and a petition circulated by school librarians, educators, and authors". Britten Follett (CEO Content) and Paul Isle (CEO Software) issued a joint statement Apr 1. Separately, in a follow-up interview, britten follett alone said these controls "are not in the best interests of our customers at this point". Trigger was "about 30 customers, in districts across Florida, Texas, and Georgia" (her words).
Publishing & vendors+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Of 102 booklook.info report PDFs that have a title-matched twin in the BookLooks.org report archive, 46 are full-text identical and the booklook.info copy is the earlier file in 91; the Mar 28 version of The Infinite Moment of Us carries a 'book committee rating / movie rating equivalent / NC-17' block that the Apr 5 booklook.info copy drops, i.e. the 0-5 'UBC' scale replaced an mpaa equivalence between Mar 28, 2022 and Apr 5, 2022
Florida+1 · Libraries / Technology
Documented the comparison, computed over both archives / supported the 'replaced' reading, from two versions of one report
Every file linked from booklook.info's public-book-reports table is owned by one Drive account, moms4libertybookreports@gmail.com: 143 of 143 resolvable ids (119 report + 25 presentation URLs; the 144th, Flowers in the Attic, is restricted). The reports arrived in three drops: 83 in a five-minute upload on Apr 6, 2022 (18:09-18:13Z; written Apr 4-5), 15 on May 9, 2022 and 17 on May 26, 2022; nothing on the account is dated after May 26, 2022
Florida+1 · Technology / Vendors
Documented owner and upload times for all 143, Drive API Sep 14, 2026; the 144th is an access null (anon fetch 401 on 09-13)
RatedBooks' own production line is dated by Drive metadata: that same Gmail address (Brooke Stephens) creates 'How to Review a Book' (15:29Z) and 'template FOR book review' (15:29Z) on Apr 9, 2022, four days after BookLooks.org LLC was filed; the template is headed 'parental advistory explicit content / sexually explicit content available AT texas independent school districts' with a 22-word profanity-count list and a fixed 'Not appropriate literary content for K-12 schools' conclusion; the how-to tells reviewers to read via Libby, Scribd, Hoopla, Open Library, archive.org or Kindle, count sensitive words from screenshots, submit through tinyurl.com/bookratingform, and paste a boilerplate 'normalization' paragraph for 'normalization books'
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the owner, creation and modification times, Drive API Sep 13, 2026 / documented the texts, exported / supported that this is the origin of the RatedBooks-format reports (the Washington County and Gabi reports in the collection carry the same 'parental advistory' header)
Archive copyUnlisted video, "Adding spreadsheet to Google My Maps", uploaded Apr 23, 2022
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
Utah AG's Office issued a memo "Laws surrounding school libraries" cautioning that removal can implicate First Amendment rights — author Ashley Biehl, Assistant Attorney General, Education Division: "Does HB 374 change the standard for school library books? No."; the three-prong test at 76-10-1201(5)(a) "must always be utilized"; leaving books on shelves pending review "helps to ensure that schools are not engaging in prior restraint"
Utah+1 · Libraries / Policy ·
1 source
documentUtah AG's Office memorandum to LEAs, May 4, 2022, "Laws surrounding school libraries", author Ashley Biehl, Assistant Attorney General, Education Division
At the Utah State Board of Education Law and Licensing Committee public comment (sensitive-materials rulemaking era), the chair reads the commenter order on tape: Rep. Ken Ivory and Brooke Stephens speak back-to-back; Stephens's comment frames the publisher supply chain — 'publishing companies created a new genre... created a new adult category of books' that failed for lack of space 'in bookstores and libraries' — the earliest publisher-supply argument in the reviewed record of the Utah State Board of Education
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
Brooke Stephens is the guest on "Be Not Afraid with Carob Marcelle" (Carrie/Cari Bartholomew) in an episode titled "Laverna in The Library" (J4CZAZexmb0, 3156s, 166 views when saved). The host introduces her: "brooke's specialty is she is laverna in the library". The recording carries a burned-in participant label reading "Brooke Stephens - Storylabs Spanish" from at least 00:05:00 through 00:30:00 (verified by eye Aug 19, 2026). At 00:04:57, with that label on screen, she says of herself "i posted that ... because i'm on the board of utah parents united"
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community ·
3 sources
video"Laverna in The Library" episode, May 2022 — she says "I'm on the board of Utah Parents United" while the video label reads "Brooke Stephens - Storylabs Spanish"
Be Not Afraid with Carob Marcelle channel, published May 7, 2022 (Utah time)
clipMay 2022: the label and the board seat (25s, video)
“…All Boys Aren't Blue. And I read that and I'm like, what? This isn't a kid's book [the channel's auto-captions garble this phrase; the two passes do not agree on it], what? And I was horrified. And I like posted it, you know, because I'm on the board of Utah Parents United. And so I posted that. I'm like, yeah, that shouldn't be happening.”
Brooke Stephens on “Laverna in The Library,” May 2022 (video J4CZAZexmb0), from 4:50. The participant label burned into the video reads “Brooke Stephens - Storylabs Spanish”. Transcript quoted only where the channel's captions and an independent machine transcription of the cut file agree.
videoBe Not Afraid with Carob Marcelle, 'Laverna in The Library' (J4CZAZexmb0), 3156s
Brooke Stephens records and uploads the unlisted tutorial "How to Search Follett and make a map of locations for multiple schools" (WxpdKPzfCV8, 12:47). Demonstrates follett.com/aasp/ui/pick, sets Location to the whole Granite School District, pulls the title list from ratedbooks.org, sorts by rating fives-first, plots schools on Google My Maps, adds a how-to-challenge URL and shares by TinyURL, "send it to the principal". States the template lives on the maps button of ratedbooks.org and that "this will be the video I'm making right now".
Archive copyUnlisted video, "How to Search Follett and make a map of locations for multiple schools", uploaded May 8, 2022
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
documentDeseret News opinion, 'Has your child been exposed to pornography at school? Utah legislators have a solution' (Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, May 18, 2022)
First archived 200 of the "stopschoolporn" funnel page on bwentzel6.wixsite.com/website-7 (RatedBooks' Wix build origin): a gated intake matching the billboard/truth-truck funnel Stephens later describes on the Apr 5, 2024 Protect Child Health Coalition webinar — "phone number to be verified, or fill out the following form and we will call you." The vanity domain stopschoolporn.com is archived once (Aug 13, 2022) as a 302 whose Location header points at this exact page. Page title reads "stopschoolporn | Stop Utah Porn"; site code carries 530-350-9272, the documented RQApps/StoryLabs contact number
Utah · Technology ·
2 sources
archived pagestopschoolporn.com, archived as a redirect (Aug 2022)
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
documentUtah Attorney General memorandum to the Utah State Board of Education on laws surrounding school libraries, Jun 1, 2022, hosted by the Utah State Board of Education
Documented the row, read from the bulk export / supported strong that this candidate is the "MELANIE MORTENSON" filed as a Utah Parents United director (state entity 12213207-0140, row last updated Apr 6, 2026): both Davis County, spelling differs, no document joins them
Documented the county rows and percentages, from the state primary canvass (Davis 14,780 and Salt Lake 686 v 15,540 and 1,006; the computer text-reading dropped the printed totals line, the sums are computed) / supported the convention result, Ballotpedia only / supported strong that this candidate is the "MELANIE MORTENSON" filed as a Utah Parents United director (state entity 12213207-0140, row last updated Apr 6, 2026): both Davis County, spelling differs, no document joins them
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Utah Parents United's Telegram channel (post 42) asks readers to "give your opinion on whether ... passages in the following books are sexually explicit" and whether "these 12 books meet the definition of 'Sensitive Materials' as defined by HB374". The Google Form it links is titled "Utah Parents Claiming Harm for Their Child in a Utah Public School". It collects the parent's name and phone, district, school and child names ("one entry per child"), a True box that "The unlabeled pornographic material in print and online at my child(ren)'s school ... is the proximate cause for my child(ren) ... to be harmed physically (addiction), psychologically and emotionally", three permissions "for my name to be used on legal letters to the district" claiming harm, "violation of HB374" and "violation of HB243, the Warning Label law", twelve True/False excerpt items judged against "UPU's suggested description of Sensitive Materials for the Sensitive Materials Rubric", and a Yes/No on whether the child can reach seven titles "in an online database, such as SORA" with no warning label. The form still accepts responses on Sep 13, 2026.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
Documented the post / documented the form as archived Oct 31, 2022 and as live Sep 13, 2026, description and all 29 questions identical / supported that it read the same on Jul 18, 2022 / needs verification responses, or any letter sent
The Utah State Board of Education's 2022 Instructional Materials Review Report rejects both storylabs.online curriculum products, as consecutive records. Record 2234 "HEART: Health Education and Relationship Training (A New Sex Ed Curriculum)" is marked Reviewed-Not Recommended / Rejected, with the recommendation "to uphold the denial and remove it as a teacher resource"; record 2235 "1776 Unites" is marked Rejected. The Standards and Assessment Committee took the report as action item 12.4; Member L. Belnap moved to approve and forward it to the Board and "the motion passed unanimously"
Vicki Baggett is a district employee challenging her own district's books, and was inside the selection process she challenges. In her letter to Asst. Supt. Steve Marcanio she writes 'As a veteran teacher with over 31 years of high school and college teaching experience' and 'as a veteran English teacher', refers to 'my own school professionals, colleagues, and district personnel', and states that under the My Perspectives curriculum 'teachers were allowed to vote for one classroom novel per grade level. The book in question is certainly not one I voted for... this particular book won the 12th English teacher vote throughout our district'. She emails from VBaggett@ecsdfl.us and her 2024 campaign-finance filing lists her occupation as 'Teacher'
Florida+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented as her own statements and the district record
The HB243 complaint form is pre-filled with a target list of books. The Google Doc the storylabs.online /hb243 page links as 'the Form' is titled 'Template - Hb243 warning labels form', is owned by the personal Gmail account behind the 'bwentzel' handle, the same account that owns the ratings workbook - was created Aug 23, 2022 and last modified Oct 15, 2025, and is readable by anyone with the link. The statute leaves Part 1 for the noticing party to describe the violation; this document supplies that description already written: 'The following harmful to minors books were found to be accessible to students via the sora online database during the 2024-2025 school year at the following schools', followed by fourteen named titles each with a RatedBooks report link - Sold, five A Court of Thorns and Roses volumes, Crank, Empire of Storms, House of Earth and Blood, slaughterhouse five, The Handmaid's Tale and its graphic novel, The Haters, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The only blanks left for the user are the school names and their own contact details. Eight OF THE TEN sora titles IN THE hidden 'the Davis School District 243' TAB appear ON this form: the hidden tab counts sora violations and the form demands $500 for sora violations, over the same channel and the same books
Utah+3 · Policy / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the document, its metadata, its pre-filled description and every title / documented the eight-title overlap / needs verification whether any completed notice was ever served
Escambia's scanned reconsideration forms were filed in numbered batches, not as independent complaints: five forms read by eye all carry a handwritten 'Set N #M' marker (Set 1 #1, #16, #22, #32; Set 2 #2), the same date 8-24-22, the same school (Northview High School) and the same city/ZIP (Century FL), each signed Vicki Baggett. Titles include Melissa (George), Stamped from the Beginning, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Hear These Voices, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Florida+1 · Libraries / Policy
Documented the five read / needs verification how many sets and how many items in each
12 records · 3 with receipts · 5 themes · 2 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Utah Parents United publishes "How to have uncomfortable conversations with your teacher or principal" (1h57m, youtu.be/4yPuNr1gld0). The host introduces the opening speaker as Jen Brown, who "runs the Utah citizens for the Constitution" and is credited with helping pass the pornography-public-health-crisis measure and the phone pornography-filter law; Brown opens by saying she lives in Bountiful, has five sons in public school, and got into public policy "about 13 years ago and it is about protecting children." Business Insider (Aug 11, 2023) later described the video as Utah Parents United teaching parents how to pressure teachers and called Brown "the director of Utahns for the Constitution".
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the video, its date and that Brown opens it / supported (automatic transcription) all quoted wording / supported that the host is Nichole Mason (self-named only as Nicole)
Utah Parents United's own website starts referring readers to RatedBooks. The page utahparentsunited.org/laverna.html, a numbered four-step how-to titled 'LaVerna IN THE library', gains three ratedbooks.org URLs and one storylabs.online URL. Step 2 tells readers 'RatedBooks.org is a searchable website that has cataloged the rated reports of over 300 books'; step 4 says 'RatedBooks will create a district page for Utah school districts for free if you fill out this form. (Out of state costs $35 here.)' and that link goes to storylabs.online/product-page/custom-ratedbooks-homepage
archived pageMedia Matters, Olivia Little, "Moms for Liberty is hiding behind these front groups as they gut public school libraries" (Sep 20, 2022), Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Sep 20, 2022
Four products are present together on storylabs.online: the $50 "RATEDbooks webpage for your school or district", "Harmful to Minors" warning stickers, "State of Utah" warning stickers, and the /hb243 page - a Utah Warning Label Law complaint kit citing Utah Code 78B-6-2103 and a $500-per-violation penalty, instructing readers to research their school's catalog, document findings with screenshots, and submit the form to the offending party and the Utah Attorney General
The Utah Parents United-linked ratings workbook is the worksheet for a product sold on storylabs.online. The storylabs.online page /hb243, headed 'Utah Warning Label Law' and 'HB243 (2020)', cites 'Violation of Utah Code Section 78B-6-2103' and '$500 penalty payment for each violation', directs the reader to submit a form to the offending party AND to the Utah Attorney General at Suite #230 Salt Lake City UT, and instructs: 'You must research which books are available in your school. Check the online database (sora etc) and your physical library databases. Document your findings with pictures and screenshots. Note the locations and dates.' It then says 'Physical libraries have a different requirement with a date of 5-12-2020, so we have compiled a list of books published after 5-12-2020. See the second tab of this spreadsheet' - and links BY ID, twice, TO spreadsheet 16kXOBblHt1EeNHQu0v-a_vlavr7ywuxjRiKTljh-lxM, the same workbook already registered at BBA-0998. That workbook carries a hidden tab named exactly 'HB243 Published after 5-12-2020'. The same page sells the cure: $6 sticker sheets and a $55 brochure, 'Offending parties may purchase the stickers below to satisfy the law'
Adams Leadership political fundraising committee (Senate President J. Stuart Adams) reports a $500 expenditure to Utah Eagle Forum, purpose Political Support; the same bulk export shows Eagle Forum receiving from Wilson Leadership political fundraising committee ($500, Jan 31, 2023), House Speaker Leadership political fundraising committee ($800, May 4, 2026), and the campaign committees of Mike Schultz ($500, Jan 25, 2023), Kirk Cullimore ($500, Oct 24, 2022), Mark Strong, Michael Kennedy, Keith Grover and Phil Lyman ($200, Sep 30, 2023)
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented every row, read from the Lieutenant Governor's bulk export
21 records · 5 with receipts · 6 themes · 3 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
A 2022 document cites the warning-label statute as the penalty for schools that refuse to remove books, joining THE TWO tracks. The ratedbooks.org page /wsd links a 56-page PDF headed 'HB374 Code Violations', hosted at designrr.s3.amazonaws.com under a storage path named for a personal Gmail account, with the filename DSDBookList-HB374CodeViolations1 (prefixed with the same account name) followed by the Unix timestamp 1664583393, which is Oct 1, 2022 00:16 UTC. Its stated purpose is to list all 52 books originally slated for removal, which schools still hold each, and where each violates the Bright Line Rule at Utah Code 76-10-1227(1)(a)(i)(ii)(iii). It then states: 'These books must be immediately removed from the schools according to the Attorney General's Guidance and refusal to do so will result in a fine of up to $2,500 per violation according to Utah Code 78B-6-2105 (3).' that IS THE warning-label statute behind THE HB243 complaint KIT, cited AS THE penalty FOR A district that declines TO remove books. Separately the same page publishes a Google My Map, 'Washington School District - RatedBooks.org', layer-titled 3/4/23, with 21 placemarks covering 20 named Washington County schools each carrying a per-school book list with rating links - Pine View High 31, Hurricane High 29, Snow Canyon Middle 25, Dixie High 22 - and instructs readers to verify locations by searching Follett (the company behind the Destiny school catalog software), with a YouTube tutorial and a challenge form
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology
Documented the document, its S3 path, its timestamp, its quoted text and every citation count / documented the map, its title and its per-school counts / needs verification who wrote or uploaded the document
An "HB374 TOWN HALL MEETING" on "Sensitive materials in school libraries" is advertised for Monday, Oct 3, 7pm at Paradigm Academy in South Jordan, on a flyer carrying a "VOTE IVORY" campaign logo; Utah Parents United's Telegram channel posts the flyer on Sep 22, 2022 with "Come tell what is happening in your district regarding inappropriate library materials and give your suggestions on what needs to happen next. 18+ only".
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the flyer and the post / needs verification that the meeting occurred or who spoke
Archive copyDavis School District (UT) board packet attachment, Jan 17, 2023 meeting: "School Library Media -- Sensitive Materials | Scope of Work | FAQ", dated Jan 5, 2023, 3 pp
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
A Save Page Now capture was made Aug 19, 2026 and reported success, but the snapshot 404s on retrieval, so no public copy is citable. The document is held in the research archive. Re-try SPN before treating this as permanent.
Documented the link, the slide quote, the Doc's title and text as exported Oct 16, 2026 / supported the no-later-than date, inferred from the deck linking the Doc's id / needs verification who created or owns the Doc
Documented the file, its metadata, the meeting-page link and the slide-text diff / documented slide 30, eye-read at 150 dpi / supported that 00004086 was posted with the meeting packet (its ID sits between that meeting's 00004085 and 00004087)
Same INTEDU meeting, H.B. 374 item: the presenter yields the floor with 'This is Brooke Stevens [as heard on the recording; the minutes give Brooke Stephens of Utah Parents United] from Davis County. She is a mom who then started her own website... It's called ratedbooks.org. If you want to know what books are in your school... you can go to the website ratedbooks.org'; a committee member replies 'And rated books, I'm glad I can search for it'
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community ·
Documented ; introducer = Ivory confirmed ON tape: Stephens's first words in reply are 'Yeah, thank you, Representative Ivory' (transcript ~line 1913), plus continuous-presenter structure and minutes
1 source
documentUtah Legislature committee archive, Education Interim Committee, Oct 19, 2022, streaming recording plus linked minutes and handouts
At the same INTEDU hearing, Rep. Ivory promotes ratedbooks.org on tape while introducing the operator: 'This is Brooke Stevens from Davis County... If you want to know what books are in your school and what's in the books in your school, you can go to the website ratedbooks.org.' She replies 'thank you, Representative Ivory.' The earliest on-tape officeholder promotion of the site, 13 days after his op-ed did it in print
Utah Parents United's Telegram channel (post 75) publishes a parent-facing digest of the Utah legislature’s audit office's curriculum audit (Report 2022-12), linking olag.utah.gov/olag-doc/2022-12_RPT.pdf and a Deseret News story, with paired "Finding" and "Parent Takeaway" items: inappropriate content "includes pornographic images, sexuality, white privilege, racism, and other politically divisive topics"; "This is the exception not the rule"; the auditor "reviewed more than 500 concerns lodged with the Utah State Board of Education's hotline"; "little consistency on how curriculum is adopted district to district".
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the post / documented as Utah Parents United's reading each "Finding"
Documented both sides of the record, the political fundraising committee row from the bulk export and her committee filings / documented that the record is one-sided, payer only / supported strong that this candidate is the "MELANIE MORTENSON" filed as a Utah Parents United director (state entity 12213207-0140, row last updated Apr 6, 2026): both Davis County, spelling differs, no document joins them
Documented the file, its S3 date, its metadata and each page match (image correlation 0.997-1.000, Breathless text identical) / documented the four logo absences, eye-read in the top-right corner only / needs verification who uploaded it or removed the logos
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
archived pageBook Riot, Kelly Jensen, "The Biased Online Book Ratings Systems Undermining Professional Review Sources: Book Censorship News, November 4, 2022," Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Nov 4, 2022
Mariya Calkins, who in May 2023 is identified as founder of the Santa Rosa County chapter of Moms for Liberty (BBA-0847), ran for florida state representative as a Republican in 2022 (Division of Elections candidate code (REP)(STR)); her campaign received 352,852 dollars across 387 contribution rows from 264 distinct contributors, Jan 7 to Nov 2 2022, of which she self-funded about 80,477 dollars (contributor 'calkins mariya', occupation homemaker, Milton FL)
Florida+1 · Policy / Community
Documented the candidate line, the contribution rows and every total, summed directly from the Florida DOE bulk contribution export (387 rows, all amounts clean numerics) / documented the House district: a contribution row lists 'mariya calkins campaign', Milton FL, with the field 'house district 3', so she ran for Florida House District 3 (the Santa Rosa/Escambia Panhandle seat) / needs verification that the 2024 'calkins/santa rosa comm, district 3' and 2026 'calkins/walton CTY comm district 4' expenditure-file committees are Mariya: county-commission races are local (Supervisor of Elections), absent from this state export, and the county Calkins is james calkins campaign, at Mariya's exact 2022 contributor address Milton FL (Santa Rosa County Commission D3, expenditure dated Apr 23, 2024; then Walton County Commission D4, Jun 23, 2026, by then at Miramar Beach) -- the same-household James, not Mariya supported (strong on the household from the shared address; (documented) that James is the county candidate). Both James rows are $1,000 from Constituent Priorities (political fundraising committee). Mariya has NO candidate committee in the state export for 2023-2026 (positive control: 788,778 rows dated 2025 and 666,026 dated 2026 exist), so she is not running for state office; a local Mariya candidacy is needs verification (the Santa Rosa Supervisor of Elections candidate page fetched Sep 15, 2026 is a 5KB nav shell with no roster, a false null, not a confirmed absence). Donor profile documented: her contributors are conventional local Panhandle business and maxed individuals (real-estate developers, contractors, restaurants, teachers, retirees at the $1,000 cap); the only committee money is $500 to Friends of David Smith political fundraising committee; no Moms for Liberty, RatedBooks, or book-network money appears. Race outcome needs verification: the FL results portal is a JS SPA and its download endpoints 500, so win/loss was not retrievable this pass
A hidden tab in the same workbook, 'the Davis School District 243', is a completed violation tally against Davis School District - the product's instructions carried out against one named district. Its columns are '# of violations', 'locations in the Davis School District', Title, Author, Link to Report, Publisher, Rating. It counts 73 physical-copy violations across 17 titles at named Davis schools, 14 sora online-library violations across 10 titles, a further 322 labeled 'X availability in 23 schools, 9 high schools, 14 junior high schools', and prints its own bottom line: 'total violations 394'. At the $500 per violation the selling page states, 394 violations is $197,000. Eighteen Davis schools are named in the location column, most often Northridge (10 titles), Syracuse (7), Layton (6) and Woods Cross (5), plus sora against 10 titles
Utah · Libraries
Documented the tab, its columns and every figure printed in it / documented as the sheet's claim that any title was present at any named school / needs verification whether the tally was ever submitted to anyone
Baggett's reconsideration forms cite religion as a removal ground in her own words, on 10 forms naming her across two counties (of 13 religious-ground documents found): 6 Escambia forms carrying her complainant signature ("controversial religious commentary" — Triangles, The Year of the Flood, Concrete Rose, The Almost Moon, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe, Rumble) and 4 Santa Rosa forms initiated jointly with Sharon White ("religious commentary" on The Almost Moon and The Circle; "mocking of religious participants" on Almost Adulting; "deliberately mocks religions and races" on Concrete Rose). The other 3 documents show no filer in the extract, including an Escambia Porcupine of Truth form objecting to "continuous mockery of religions, such as 'F-cking Mormons'"
Florida · Libraries ·
1 source
documentEscambia County (FL) Public Schools, 'Reconsideration of Educational Media' page, which publishes the ecps 22-26 Reconsiderations register and links the individual challenge-form PDFs
BookLooks' page citations for Push (Sapphire) checked against the book: the passage 'Daddy sick me, disgust me' is cited as page 99 on Maikisch's Mar 28, 2022 slide and Apr 5, 2022 report and as page 127 in the Jun 20, 2022 BookLooks.org report and its Dec 3, 2022 slick sheet; in the Vintage paperback (the only pagination the reports' ISBN list points to; 3 Internet Archive scans, copyright-page and first-line controls passing) it is on page 111; three more passages on the December sheet are cited 72, 72 and 152 against true pages 57, 57 and 135
Florida · Technology
Documented every cited and true page / documented that the 0-329 ISBN on the April report is a WorldCat-clustered rebinding of the Vintage text (oclc 368022334) / supported that this is the same mechanism as the 2026-07 audit's 1.4-1.9x cases
Utah Parents United's Telegram channel (post 94) posts "THANK YOU Davis School District for removing the following 21 books", listing each title with a single digit (one 5, sixteen 4s, three 3s; The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue with none) and 35 tinyurl links. The digit equals the RatedBooks rating for 20 of 20, and all 21 titles sit in the RatedBooks index flagged "Date Added: BookLooks". The links resolve to files (20 multi-page BookLooks-format "Summary of Concerns" reports, six with PDF author Emily Maikisch, and 9 one-page slicksheets), 5 slicksheet PDFs on ratedbooks.org under the 413ae8_ media prefix, and 1 ratedbooks.org product page. All files are currently owned by that same Gmail address, the contact on RatedBooks.org's Utah Articles of Incorporation. The post never uses the word RatedBooks.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the post, byte-identical to its May 22, 2023 Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) copy / documented the numbers against the RatedBooks index / documented the link destinations and the current Drive owner, positive control passing / supported that the same account owned the files in Dec 2022 (Drive publishes no ownership history) / needs verification that Davis had removed all 21 by that date
The Davis violation tally and the HB243 list were publicly visible tabs in Dec 2022 and are hidden today. An archived server-rendered /htmlview snapshot of the ratings workbook, Dec 23, 2022, lists seven visible tabs: Rated Books, the Davis School District challenges, Slicksheets, Bright Line Violations, HB243 Published after 5-12-2020, Davis School District 243, and ASD retained. As of Aug 29, 2026 only three are visible (Rated Books 45, Rated Books 0-3, Slicksheets); the Davis School District challenges, Bright Line Violations, HB243 Published after 5-12-2020 and the Davis School District 243 are all marked hidden in the workbook, and NO TAB named 'ASD retained' exists ANY more under that name. Drive metadata gives the workbook created Apr 7, 2022, last modified Feb 19, 2025, titled 'Rated Book Review List: Author, Publisher and URL'. So the per-school Davis violation tally and the HB243 title list were open on the public sheet during the period the storylabs.online /hb243 product page was directing buyers to that same spreadsheet
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology
Documented the 2022 tab list, the 2026 tab state, and the Drive created/modified dates / supported the bounded created and hidden windows / needs verification which of rename or deletion removed ASD retained
11 records · 4 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Archive copyDavis School District (UT) board packet attachment, Jan 17, 2023 meeting: "School Library Media -- Sensitive Materials | Scope of Work | FAQ", dated Jan 5, 2023, 3 pp
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
A Save Page Now capture was made Aug 19, 2026 and reported success, but the snapshot 404s on retrieval, so no public copy is citable. The document is held in the research archive. Re-try SPN before treating this as permanent.
At the Utah State Board of Education's legislative meeting, Jamie Renda gives two-minute public comment by Zoom in favor of H.B. 215 (Funding for Teacher Salaries and Optional Education Opportunities, the Utah Fits All scholarship bill), opening that she has had children in public school, charter school and homeschool; the approved minutes list her under Others Present, on a line that begins "USBE staff", and record her as speaking in favor, as Brigette Middleton also did; Member Joseph Kerry attended online
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Vendors / Community
Documented her presence and position, minutes and recording agreeing / supported (automatic transcription) her wording, from the automatic caption track / needs verification the minutes' "USBE staff" label, which the recording contradicts (she joined as a public commenter on Zoom)
14 records · 6 with receipts · 5 themes · 1 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Same hearing: the Utah State Board of Education Vice Chair Jennie Earl, co-presenting H.B. 464 (Ivory hands off to her by name on tape), asks 'where are these books coming from?' and names Rated Books — her earliest public RatedBooks reference in the swept record
Utah+1 · Libraries / Technology ·
1 source
documentUtah House Education Committee, Feb 23 2023 - meeting audio archive (H.B. 464 presentation)
archived pageEveryLibrary, "A Win in the 2023 Utah Legislative Session: Libraries Hold the Line," Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Mar 7, 2023
Davis school district board consent-approved (Consent Items 1-10, carried 7-0, none opposed: Mumford, Gerrard, Powell, Hogan, Robison, Price, Lamb) the Sensitive Materials Appeal Committee recommendation on 5 titles: Remove The Bluest Eye, All Boys Aren’t Blue, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Red White & Royal Blue; retain The Clockwork Princess. The appeals committee affirmed the initial district review committee on all 5.
documentClay County (FL) Request for Reconsideration packet, Running Loose, filed Nov 18, 2024 (attaches a Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) screenshot dated Mar 12, 2023)
Utah Parents United's Telegram channel (post 121) posts a statement on the Davis Bible challenge: "The petition of the bible was in no way related to Utah Parents United. It is clear from the petition that this is a political stunt and the parent does not understand the law or the seriousness of the challenge process. None of the passages from the Bible meet the Bright Line Standard for pornographic content. Not every reference to sexual activity meets the criteria for removal from a school library." It then quotes HB 374's three-part definition.
archived pageAtheist Republic, "Parents Try to Ban the Bible from School Shelves for 'Indecent' Material" (Mar 30, 2023), Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Jun 8, 2023
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Moms for Liberty Williamson County (TN) publishes a 'WCS Library Books' database of 319 titles on its WordPress site (custom post type 'books', 318 posts dated Apr 2023, one Jun 2023); each card's summary is the BookLooks.org report's 'Summary of Concerns' with 'This book contains' removed (168 of 247 matched titles identical after normalization), and the ratings legend is BookLook.info's 'Universal Book Content (UBC) Rating' graphic verbatim; 142 of 319 carry WCS school tags
Multi-state+1 · Libraries / Technology
Documented the site, the 319 records, the comparison and the legend, all fetched and computed Sep 13, 2026 / supported the residue of the summary match
Documented every located page, with the 'Henry Holt and Company' front-matter control / supported that the Norton edition keeps the Holt pagination, inferred from the 22 exact hits
Weber State University hosts conservative civil-rights activist Robert Woodson on a panel about race, organized by Jamie Renda and sponsored by Conservative Americans for Equality (cafe) and Path Forward Utah with the university; the Standard-Examiner names Renda co-founder of both organizations and lists panelists Letroy Woods (Path Forward Utah), John Harvey, Cari Bartholomew, Lucy Shirisia and Ron Williams, "a bodybuilder"
Utah · Unsorted
Documented as reported in two Standard-Examiner pieces (Apr 7, 2023 preview naming "Tuesday, April 11, 2023"; Apr 12, 2023 report)
Google My Map "Davis School District, Utah (DSD) - Ratedbooks.org" published, layer "4/17/23 - DSD Books needing to be challenged", legend "Blue = rated 5 & 4 (worst) Yellow = Rated 4, 3", 32 pins across Davis District including the district office and five elementary schools (Sunburst, Sunset, Tolman, Wasatch, and Windridge in the 2022 version). Header links tinyurl.com/challengebooks. Views as reported by Google My Maps on Aug 18, 2026: 89,552.
Davis school district board consent-approved (consent items 1-10, carried 7-0, none opposed) the Sensitive Materials Appeal Committee recommendation on 3 titles. First appeals-committee reversal of a removal: Monday’s Not Coming, which the initial district review committee had voted to remove, was retained in Jr. High and High School. Thirteen Reasons Why and Sold were both narrowed from Retain to Retain in High School.
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Utah Parents United's Telegram channel (post 135) posts youtu.be/QCGhVZ5uvM0, which YouTube's oEmbed record titles "How to challenge a book. Ratedbooks.org" (author "Utah Parents United", 570 s). Its captions open: "hey Utah families it's Corrine Johnson here and I'm going to give you guys a quick tutorial on how to challenge a book this is in response to a lot of questions we're getting from Jordan School District parents after mayor Trent Staggs representative Ken Ivory and another awesome Mom all gave testimony at the Jordan School District board meeting about the 100 books".
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented the post, the title and the channel / supported (automatic captions) the quoted opening / needs verification the upload date, which oEmbed does not carry
Liberty Village Utah registered with the Utah Division of Corporations as a domestic nonprofit corporation, entity 13126120-0140, with three directors: Kathy Smith of Ogden, Lex Howard of St George, and Victor Iverson of La Verkin; its registered agent (a company’s official contact person) and physical address are St George, the same address at which evig LLC, the Balance of Nature distributor Lex Howard manages, is registered
Utah+2 · Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the filing, its directors and every address / documented that the director Victor Iverson is a sitting Washington County Commissioner, from the organization's own board page / needs verification which of the registry's two conflicting dates governs / needs verification whether he was on the board when the county funded the project
Dan Kleinman (SafeLibraries) gives the first radio interview announcing a new library association, on The Jake Merrick Show (Oklahoma morning drive). At 00:06:05 he says he 'just started' it 'about two weeks ago'; at 00:21:43 the host calls it 'breaking news this morning' and at 00:21:54 'the first interview Dan has done about his library association that he started'. The name World Library Association is never spoken in 30:43 of audio (0 hits in both transcripts against 24 and 17 for American Library Association); the tie to WLA is the Drive filename and the shortlink slug newlibraryassociationannounced. The broadcast date is May 12, 2023, a Friday, established by three anchors inside the recording: the host says 'this Friday morning' at 00:00:29 and 'It's 7:35 AM. It's a beautiful Friday morning' at 00:14:18, and a news break at 00:12:38 reports tornadoes in Noble, Oklahoma 'last night', which the SPC storm log for May 11, 2023 records at 0207 UTC (9:07 PM CDT May 11). The file's own name, May 9, 2023 -DanKleinmanInterviewOnJakeMerrickShow.mp3, is wrong by three days; May 9 was a Tuesday. 'About two weeks ago' puts the start near the last week of Apr 2023, on his own approximation.
Publishing & vendors+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the broadcast date and that an association was announced / supported that it is the World Library Association / supported the 'about two weeks ago' start
archived pageSouth Santa Rosa News, Romi White, published May 31, 2023, first Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture the same day
Baggett addressed the Santa Rosa County chapter of Moms for Liberty at its monthly meeting at the Santa Rosa County Chamber of Commerce, about two dozen attending, and shared tips on how to get content removed. She showed excerpts from books already removed in Escambia including All Boys Aren't Blue, and explicit images from Zahra's Paradise which the chapter said remained available in Santa Rosa schools. Her own words: 'I did not care. This was inappropriate.'
Florida+1 · Policy / Community ·
1 source
archived pageSouth Santa Rosa News, Romi White, published May 31, 2023, first Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture the same day
Christina Boggess, in her fifth month as the Utah State Board of Education member for District 8, speaks at a press conference at the Utah State Capitol against the removal of the King James Bible from Davis School District schools, thirteen days before the district's appeal committee reverses that removal. Her address is religious rather than procedural. She asks the young people present to hold their Bibles in the air, calls the removal of “the seminal text of the American founding” a “whole new level in definition of un-American”, states there is “no good without God and no good outside of God”, and closes on the building’s “quasi-transparent ceilings reminding us that God, Yahweh himself, is watching us here today” and that each person “will stand before Yahweh himself and we will account for our actions”. She also asserts that “an act of Congress sanctioned the publication of the Bible for its installation into all schools as a tool of instruction”. She publishes the text on her own website the same day under the heading “God is watching!”, writing “I was asked to speak at the Legislative Press Conference at the Capitol regarding the removal of the Bible in the Davis School District. Below is my statement”, and signing it “Christina Boggess, Utah State Board of Education, District 8” on a page that also carries a donate TO christina button. The recording runs on into the next speaker, who introduces himself as Chuck Bickel, pastor of Faith Baptist in Layton. She posts the video to her own channel on Feb 22, 2026, two years and eight months afterwards, the same day her interview show begins
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
Documented that she gave the statement, its date, its venue and its text / documented as her assertion her historical claim about an act of Congress and her account of being asked to speak / needs verification who organized the event
Utah Citizens for the Constitution (Jen Brown) runs a copy-and-send campaign on its Telegram channel asking Gov. Cox, Senate President Adams and Speaker Wilson to put a "strengthened HB374" on a special-session agenda, framed as a response to "Davis District reticence to remove material harmful to minors from the libraries and then coming out saying the Bible is banned in elementary and junior high." The same channel carried Ivory's Jun 2 press release calling for an age-appropriateness review of all instructional materials, a Jun 5 Zoom "update on the Davis School District Bible ban," and a Jun 25 call for "a zero-tolerance policy for material harmful to minors within the Davis School District."
Utah+1 · Libraries / Policy
Documented the posts and their dates, from the sealed channel sweep / needs verification any effect on the special session
At an Education Interim Committee hearing on a district's decision to keep a title, Rep. Lisonbee stated: "This is a tool that the state has given you... the bright line rule doesn't require a previous community standard evaluation... There's no evaluation necessary." A state senator at the same hearing said the district's retention decision could render officials "accessory to distribution of pornography to minors."
Utah · Libraries ·
1 source
documentMinutes, Utah Education Interim Committee, Jun 14, 2023
Davis board appeal committee (three board members) reverses the Bible removal: retained at ALL levels, finding "significant, serious value for minors which outweighs the violent or vulgar content it contains" based on "their assessment of community standards." The only title across all 14 appeal documents 2023-03 to 2026-06 to receive a written Background and Rationale or a serious-value weighing; every non-Bible appeal rationale is the identical sentence "Utah law requires the book be removed"
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community ·
1 source
documentDavis School District Sensitive Materials Appeal Committee Recommendation, Jun 20 2023
Be Not Afraid with Carob Marcelle channel, published Jun 25, 2023 (Utah time)
clip“I'm the MC for all the list people” (56s)
“The problem is there are groups everywhere. You're familiar with many of them. You have book looks and rated books and a number of localized state and county groups throughout the nation. Everybody has a little list of books that concern them. […] So I took on the role of master of ceremonies. I'm the MC for all the list people. If you have a list, send it to me. I will absorb it into my list.” [The bracketed gap is roughly twenty seconds about Gender Queer that three automatic-transcription passes render three different ways; it is audible in the clip and deliberately not quoted.]
Bruce Friedman, interviewed on “Be Not Afraid with Carob Marcelle,” “The Truth About ‘Book Banners’”, published Jun 25, 2023 (video 1j37WFNDhf8), from 4:52. Clip cut from our saved copy and machine-transcribed from the cut file to verify it.
11 records · 5 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
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The same complaint pleads that Baggett's challenges copied the Book Looks website verbatim and that typos from book looks were carried over into HER challenges, citing her Drama challenge where every quote matches a Book Looks quote; and that her objection to When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball, 'opines prejudice based on race', is identical to a challenge form previously submitted in a Texas school district
Florida+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology ·
Documented as pleaded / needs verification as adjudicated
1 source
documentPEN American Center v. Escambia County School Board, N.D. Fla. 3:23-cv-10385, Doc 25-1 (Amended Complaint with index and exhibits, 220 pp.)
The complaint's own accounting: Baggett compiled lists of 116 titles in Aug 2022 and prepared reconsideration forms for more than 100 of them; 218 books had been challenged district-wide by anyone as of filing; 155 of those were restricted; 171 removed or restricted; and the Board removed 10 books in four waves dated Nov 1, 2022, Feb 21, 2023, Mar 20, 2023 and Apr 13, 2023, in every instance over the district review committee's contrary recommendation
Florida+1 · Libraries / Policy ·
Documented as pleaded
1 source
documentPEN American Center v. Escambia County School Board, N.D. Fla. 3:23-cv-10385, Doc 25-1 (Amended Complaint with index and exhibits, 220 pp.)
15 records · 7 with receipts · 5 themes · 2 unverified
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On "Be Not Afraid with Carob Marcelle" (the on-air name of Carrie/Cari Bartholomew), in an episode titled "Ethnic Studies Episode #7 Baked Into Everything" (VIOaufrzl3Q, 3205s, 65 views when saved), Brooke Stephens recommends her own site alongside BookLooks and describes her screening workflow: "if you don't have time booklooks.org and ratedbooks.org they have reviews and they do have commentary on that racist ... component of the books as well as the sexual nature and gender ideology is reported on", and "I'll ask chat gbt like if these books has ... what type of content it has and then I'll go get the PDF and then I'll keyword search to find the exact quotes and page numbers".
Utah+1 · Technology / Community ·
2 sources
clipThe screening workflow: ask ChatGPT, then the rating sites (38s) — who is speaking is not certain
“This is very controversial, people don't like this, some people don't like this idea, but I'll ask chat GPT, like, if these books has, uh, what type of content it has, and then I'll go get the PDF and then I'll keyword search to find the exact quotes and page numbers. So if parents aren't aware of what's in books — I mean, read it, that's the first thing, right? But if you don't have time, um, booklooks.org and ratedbooks.org, they have reviews and they do have commentary on that racist, uh, the racist component of the books, as well as the sexual nature and gender ideology.” [One automatic-transcription pass renders “chat GPT”, the channel's auto-captions render the same word “chat gbt”.]
“Be Not Afraid with Carob Marcelle,” “Ethnic Studies Episode #7 Baked Into Everything,” published Sep 8, 2023 (video VIOaufrzl3Q), from 20:22. The words are on tape (documented); WHO speaks them is (supported) — the captions carry no speaker labels and the identification rests on the visible participant tile.
videoBe Not Afraid with Carob Marcelle, 'Ethnic Studies Episode #7 Baked Into Everything.' (VIOaufrzl3Q), a past livestream, 3205s
Coalition Utah, a WordPress site with one anonymous account (coalitionutah@gmail.com) and no named human, issues its Taking a Stand to Secure Individual Freedom in Utah letter to state and local officials, co-signed by 37 organizations including Utah Eagle Forum, Higher Ground, Utah Moms for America, Utahns Against Common Core, Utah Freedom Coalition, Defending Utah, Oath Keepers USA Utah Membership and Restoring the Utah State Flag; the companion statement dated Sep 25, 2023 is a COVID-mandate grievance rejecting masks, testing, distancing and vaccine mandates; the domain was registered Sep 19, 2023, two days after the letter date
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented letter and statement read off the images; documented registration date from rdap; needs verification who drafted it or collected the signatures
Denton school district's reconsideration committee votes to return Bibles to library shelves after an Apr 2023 reconsideration request had led the district to move all Bibles to a restricted area; Denton County CDF, told of the removal by Moms for Liberty, had its legal advisor send a demand letter on Sep 14, 2023, while CDF's and Moms for Liberty's own reconsideration requests on other titles were still pending.
Texas+1 · Libraries / Technology
Documented as CDF's own account on its website; the district record is not read here
Texas political accounts report paying Recover America (Houston; also filed as "Recover America Now" and "Recover America Action"): 34 distinct payments, $48,180, Jun 11, 2021 to May 18, 2026. Largest: Defend Texas Liberty political fundraising committee $10,000 "Donation" to Recover America Action (Sep 14, 2021); Rep. Gary Elkins $7,000 "voter engagement" plus six $500 "voter education" payments (2023); Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine's campaign $5,000 "Event sponsor" (Oct 2, 2023); Friends of Paul Bettencourt $2,500 (Oct 10, 2023), $5,000 (Oct 8, 2025), $2,500 (May 18, 2026); Texans for Dan Patrick $2,000 (Sep 1, 2023) and $2,500 (Apr 16, 2026); Josh Flynn, Valoree Swanson, Tom Oliverson, Steve Toth, Rhonda Ward, Fayette County Republican Women ($250 "Donation for Book Study Event", Oct 9, 2024). Recover America's own contributions appear as "Scarborough, Dr. Rick", employer Recover America: nine rows in 2026, six to Stan Stanart.
Texas · Policy
Documented every row from the Texas Ethics Commission bulk export, de-duplicated on (filer, date, amount) because Devine's $5,000 and Texans for Dan Patrick's $2,500 each appear on two reports
Emily Maikisch, by email to USA Today, said she 'left Moms for Liberty in Mar 2022 to launch BookLooks', that she 'used to be part of the group's book review committee but left to create her own website', that 'Moms for Liberty had copied her graphic and assigned its own ratings', and that 'she had allowed the group to use BookLooks' reports but later stopped interacting with the group'; the Brevard chapter did not respond
Florida+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented as her statements, quoted by USA Today / documented that the file record matches: her name is the only author name in either collection (133 of 888 BookLooks.org PDFs, 5 of 118 booklook.info PDFs, every other file blank), her named files on the committee's Drive date Mar 20, 2022..28, and the committee's late-May copies of BookLooks.org reports (e.g. Laura Dean, .org May 26, 2022 03:01, .info 08:57 same day, identical) are the 'allowed the group to use' period
Education Interim Committee reviews the Sensitive Material Review Amendments draft 2024FL0657-005 (the future HB 29) with NO legislative-audit clause; the only oversight moment on the record is Rep. Lisonbee asking counsel Mike Curtis what can be done if a district has a clear 76-10-1227 violation and does not remove the material, answered with state-board reporting, the underlying criminal code and the Utah State Board of Education withhold or claw-back of funds, no audit named; Stephens, Peck and Ruzicka speak in public comment; Fillmore's motion directs the chairs to gather feedback from members and staff to prepare a bill file for November, 16-0-4
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the minutes and the motion / documented the Lisonbee exchange, two-pass automatic transcription, speaker from the chair's call / documented the audit null, scoped to the item-6 transcript and the Pending Items menu, with part01 (22 hits) as the positive control
archived pageThe Community Voice (Kansas), "Inside the book-ban machine: The rise of 'parental rights' groups and their efforts to ban books" (Oct 14, 2023), Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Oct 14, 2023
Archive copyUnlisted video, "UPU Class from 10/23: 12 Steps to Avoiding Parent Burnout by Jessica Bianco of Kimber Academy", uploaded Oct 17, 2023
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
The RatedBooks/Utah Parents United Utah tracking workbook records Jordan School District as "Can not search district wide" in the header cell of its "JSD Brookes Temporary file" tab, dated Checked 11-13-2023. The same workbook's two Davis School District tabs carry the district's own public library page URL as their source and are dated Checked 06-25-23, the day after the spreadsheet was created (Drive createdTime Jun 24, 2023). A further tab is headed "Total # of schools where book is found in the 14 partially searched Utah School Districts."
Davis school district board consent-approved ("Consent Items 1-6 after clerical correction", carried 6-0, none opposed) the Sensitive Materials Appeal Committee recommendation on 6 titles - the largest single appeal exhibit. Remove: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (both reversals; initial committee had said Retain in High School), Looking for Alaska (affirmed). Narrowed: Crank and The Handmaid’s Tale to Retain in High School with parental permission required; The Kite Runner from Jr. High and High School down to High School only.
Education Interim Committee takes up draft 2024FL0657-008 of the Sensitive Material Review Amendments and counsel Mike Curtis presents a few other additions since October: a state-board process for reporting LEA non-compliance (line 175), a requirement that the Office of the Legislative Auditor General audit district compliance on a rolling basis over four years (line 197), and LEA indemnification; the committee amends the statewide threshold from one district to two (14-0-6, Pierucci) and favorably recommends the bill 10-4-6; Stephens speaks in favor. The audit clause is carried unchanged into the introduced HB 29 (approved for filing 12-19-23, subsection 10, lines 202-207) and the first substitute (02-09-24), and is now 53G-10-103(10)
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the additions, Curtis's words on the recording and the minutes naming him presenter / documented the votes, minutes / documented the introduced and first-substitute texts, captured / needs verification who asked for the audit between the two meetings: the chairs' feedback round is off the record and drafts -006 and -007 are not public
Documented the tracking document as printed, cross-checked against its own embedded PDF hyperlinks (none present for the Utah Education Network row, vs. a working link to the 2021 report in the 2022 edition of the same document)
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The Legislature passes a concurrent resolution condemning and censuring the same state board member, chief sponsor Rep. Robert M. Spendlove, Senate sponsor Sen. Ann Millner, over a Feb 6 social-media post that revealed a student athlete's identity and questioned the student's gender
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the resolution text / needs verification the passage date
Denominator for the Daniels Fund grant to Empowered Parents. The same Form 990-PF shows the Daniels Fund paying 34 grants to Utah recipients in calendar year 2024, $2,893,638 in total, out of 1,593 paid grants and $69,702,756 nationally. The Empowered Parents grant is $20,000, the twenty-eighth largest of the 34 and roughly 0.7 percent of the Utah total. The education-adjacent Utah rows above it, with purposes exactly as printed: Utah association OF public charter schools $250,000 growing charter school seat capacity project; university OF utah $249,990 daniels fund ethics initiative 3.0 david eccles school OF business; utah education fits ALL $200,000 general operating support; libertas institute $150,000 childrens entrepreneur market expansion; american preparatory education foundation $75,000 american preparatory academy - cedar city; western governors university $75,000 boundless opportunity scholarship. The single largest Utah grant is unrelated to education: Fullmer legacy foundation $500,000 for a capital campaign.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented every amount and printed purpose / needs verification any relationship among the recipients
The Daniels Fund (federal tax ID 84-1393308, Denver CO, fair market value of assets $1,734,544,841) paid a $20,000 grant to Empowered Parents at 640 N Main St Ste 226, North Salt Lake UT, purpose as printed homeschooling public awareness, foundation status PC, relationship to any foundation manager none. The row sits in Part XIV line 3 section a Paid during the year of the Daniels Fund Form 990-PF for calendar year 2024, not in section b Approved for future payment. This is the first named funder AND first dollar figure attached to Empowered Parents anywhere in our records: EP files a 990-N, which discloses no revenue, so its money has only ever been visible from a funder's side.
Utah+2 · Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the printed row / supported (strong) that the recipient is Empowered Parents UT 9699080-0140
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
Archive copyUnlisted video, "Introduction to HEART Sex Ed Curricula", uploaded Jan 10, 2024
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
Utah's campaign-finance disclosure system records 36 contributions from Utah Education Association entities in calendar year 2024 totalling 165,535.16 dollars. Under the plain contributor name 'Utah Education Association' the total is 140,510.16 dollars, of which 131,785.16 dollars went to Utahns For Student Success and 8,725 dollars went directly TO named candidates -- Brent Strate 4,000, Rosemary Lesser 1,500, Carol Barlow-Lear 1,200 and Samuel Winkler 625 -- with a further 1,400 dollars to ActBlue Utah and the Utah State Hispanic Democratic Caucus. Under the political fundraising committee's names the total is 25,025 dollars, spread across fifteen candidates and party committees including 4,600 dollars to Randall Boothe, 4,050 to the Utah Democratic State Party, 2,000 to the Utah House Democratic Leadership Council and 1,000 to the Utah House Republican Election Committee.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community
Documented the records as published by the Lieutenant Governor's disclosure system, read in a browser Sep 6, 2026 / supported that the plain contributor name means general-treasury money
At the House Education hearing on HB 29, Maryann Christensen, executive director of Utah Legislative Watch, tells the committee she represents a coalition of organizations who all signed a letter in support of the bill and reads the signers into the record: Utah Parents United, Moms Army, Utah Moms for America, Worldwide Organization for Women, Utah Legislative Watch, Utah Eagle Forum, Invincible Family, Path Forward, Sisters of Liberty, Utah Citizens for the Constitution, United Women's Forum (several chapters), Strengthening Utah Families and the Empowered Family Coalition; she closes: anything a stranger could get arrested for giving a child should not be in our schools, and if books are inappropriate in two percent of schools they are inappropriate in the other 98 percent
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the speaker, the bill and the sequence, from the approved minutes (item 4, H.B. 29, line 194: Christensen, Utah Legislative Watch, spoke in favor) / supported (automatic transcription) the organization list and quoted wording, two independent automatic transcription passes agreeing / needs verification the letter itself, which is not in the meeting materials and not in the vault
KSL (Tim Vandenack) reports that Jamie Renda of Path Forward Utah "has attended the varied hearings on HB261 and testified at least once, along with others from Path Forward Utah," and "reached out to Weber State officials" seeking a conservative counterpoint to campus speakers; HB261 is the 2024 bill ending DEI programs at public colleges and agencies, and Path Forward Utah is described as advocating for "diverse communities" via a conservative lens
Utah+1 · Libraries / Policy
Documented as reported, contemporaneous / needs verification which hearing(s) she testified at, not traced to a legislative record
Fight Like A Flynn (FEC C00843714, a hybrid political fundraising committee registered Jun 25, 2023, treasurer Robert Kiger, Palm Beach FL) reports a $50,000 "Non-Contributory Account Disbursement/Donation" to "Citizens Defending Freedom Foundation", 590 NW 3rd Street, Mulberry FL, on its Form 3X for Q1 2024 (page 8, transaction SB29.5617). The same account, the same quarter, also reports donations of $100,000 to Moms For America Inc. (Branson MO), $50,000 each to Gold Institute for International Strategy, Operation Free Nation, Early Vote Action political fundraising committee and Catholics For Catholics, $25,000 to Florida Citizens Alliance, Inc. (Marco Island), and $15,000 each to Advocates for Citizens' Rights and Silent Majority Foundation: $455,130 disbursed against $4,975 received in the quarter.
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UCC's Telegram channel calls members to testify for HB29 at the next day's Senate committee ("HB29 Sensitive Materials, Rep Ken Ivory ... 2:00 PM 210 Senate Building"); on Feb 19 Brown reports the Senate amendment "that allowed a school to veto the statewide removal of a particular book" and says of an op-ed then being written, "I added the name of our organization to the letter"; on Mar 13 she posts the UEA's veto request and on Mar 14 the coalition letter Utah Parents United circulated, which "Utah Citizens for the Constitution signed."
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the posts / supported that the Feb 19 "letter" is the Feb 22 Deseret open letter (BBA-0987), whose 371 signatories include a "Jen Brown" and no organization names
Utah Senate Education heard 1st Sub. HB29, replaced with 1st Sub (4-2-3), adopted Amendment #1 (6-0-3), rejected Amendment #2 (2-4-3), passed 1st Sub. favorably (5-1-3); Stephens co-presented, rendered 'Brooke Stevens, citizen' in the minutes (one-letter clerical variant, no org); substitute creating the final statewide-removal mechanism passed 5-1; amendment protecting public read-aloud failed 2-4; a co-presenter later co-founded Hope of Utah (formed Oct 4, 2024), which lists RatedBooks as affiliate
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology ·
1 source
documentMinutes, Utah Senate Education Standing Committee, Feb 9, 2024
At the Senate Education hearing on HB 29 (item 6), after Rep. Ivory presents with Brooke Stephens (minutes: Brooke Stevens, citizen), the public speakers are Nicholeen Peck (President, Worldwide Organization for Women, in favor), Maryann Christensen (Executive Director, Utah Legislative Watch, spoke to the bill), Diane Livingston (Member, Utah Parents United, spoke to the bill) and Dalane England (citizen, in favor); Peck also spoke for S.B. 205 (item 4) earlier in the meeting
Utah+1 · Policy / Community
Documented each speaker, org and position as printed in the approved minutes, item boundaries checked (item 6 begins l.153, next motion l.179)
A 371-line signatory block on a newspaper open letter promoting the book-rating site, whose signers include people later appointed to the state board that regulates school library materials
12 records · 3 with receipts · 4 themes · 1 unverified
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archived pagePublishers Weekly, Andrew Albanese, "The Week in Libraries: March 1, 2024," Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Mar 2, 2024
A coalition letter to Gov. Cox dated Mar 10, 2024 urges him to sign HB29 "on behalf of nearly 600,000 public school children," answering the UEA's veto request. Signed by six organizations: Utah Parents United, Eagle Forum, Principal Liberty Forum, United Women's Forum, Utah Citizens for the Constitution, Worldwide Organization for Women. It states that "only thirty-four titles have been removed by three or more districts" in the prior two years, and its one citation is the Stephens-Vindas Deseret open letter.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the document as exported from the link-shared Google Doc Utah Parents United circulated / needs verification whether or when it was delivered / needs verification who drafted it
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At the Utah State Board of Education Standards & Assessment (video 02:39:00-02:40:05), a board member asks the library-procurement question in embryo: 'who orders the books that we get? What contracts are we in at a state level or local LEA level with publishers or distributors?... are we on an automatic shipment... it's putting a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage'; a participant at 02:40:37 offers to explain 'how librarians operate... how they contract'
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community ·
1 source
video'20240405 Standards and Assessment Committee(Live)', the Utah State Board of Education Media
The book-rating operator is introduced as new national co-chair of a child-health coalition on its own webinar and describes her operation: the ratings are supplied by another state's review site, a volunteer mirrors them and adds content categories, and she states the messaging strategy in terms ("we try really hard never to use the terms book banner, book burning"; "I've even started calling it parental rights")
Utah+2 · Policy / Technology / Community ·
Documented as stated on tape
12 sources
videoStover introduces Stephens as new the Protect Child Health Coalition co-chair
clipThe introduction: “new co-chair of PCHC” (22s)
“I'm Diane Stover, state director of the Protect Ohio Children Coalition and co-chair of the national Protect Child Health Coalition. Today we are so excited to have my colleague and new co-chair of PCHC, Brooke Stephens, with us. Brooke is with Utah Parents United and she's the founder of Rated Books.”
Diane Stover, the Protect Child Health Coalition webinar, Apr 5, 2024. Transcript from the video's own captions, checked against our saved copy of the recording.
clipThe messaging rule, stated as strategy (20s)
“Not what the left has said, is a book ban or book burning. And by the way, we try really hard never to use the terms book ban[ner], book burning, because we don't want to reinforce their lies. So what we call it is appropriate limits for kids.” (Two transcriptions differ on one word: YouTube captions hear “book banner,” machine transcription hears “book ban or.” Quoted to the agreed text.)
Brooke Stephens, the Protect Child Health Coalition webinar “Brooke Stephens - Rated Books,” Protect Ohio Children channel, Apr 5, 2024. Transcript from the video's own captions, checked against our saved copy of the recording.
clipWhere the ratings come from (14s)
“They said hey, we need ratings, because you're giving us some really bad ones, some mediocre ones. So BookLooks from Florida is the one who supplies all of our ratings. I'm going to show you her page.”
Brooke Stephens, the Protect Child Health Coalition webinar “Brooke Stephens - Rated Books,” Protect Ohio Children channel, Apr 5, 2024. Transcript from the video's own captions, checked against our saved copy of the recording.
clipPricing a district page (15s)
“I just give them a page and they can say whatever they want up here. It costs $35 — I just made that price up — and one-time fee, just so I could manage if like a million people came at me at once.”
Brooke Stephens, the Protect Child Health Coalition webinar “Brooke Stephens - Rated Books,” Protect Ohio Children channel, Apr 5, 2024. Transcript from the video's own captions, checked against our saved copy of the recording.
clipThe Harmer book, retold (50s)
“A War We Must Win is an accounting of one man in California. It was before movie ratings, and he was trying to get the porn out of theaters, and the librarians were coming along and defending it as freedom of speech. So the pornographers were using librarians even before it was books… they came in and said, oh, we'll rate ourselves. So that was the birth of the movie rating system. It was in 1964.”
Brooke Stephens, the Protect Child Health Coalition webinar “Brooke Stephens - Rated Books,” Protect Ohio Children channel, Apr 5, 2024. Transcript from the video's own captions, checked against our saved copy of the recording.
clipThe closing charge (14s)
“Celebrate your wins — 'cause right after that you'll have a loss. You just keep going. Don't worry, you're on the right path. You're doing God's errand.”
Brooke Stephens, the Protect Child Health Coalition webinar “Brooke Stephens - Rated Books,” Protect Ohio Children channel, Apr 5, 2024. Transcript from the video's own captions, checked against our saved copy of the recording.
clipWhy the spreadsheet exists (20s)
“We have a whole spreadsheet for the whole state, because the law that we just got passed is: if a book has been removed in three school districts, it needs to be removed statewide. And so in order to do that, we have to have the data — so we have done a spreadsheet map for all of these books.”
Brooke Stephens, the Protect Child Health Coalition webinar “Brooke Stephens - Rated Books,” Protect Ohio Children channel, Apr 5, 2024. Transcript from the video's own captions, checked against our saved copy of the recording.
clipThe catalog back door (30s)
“We went to the school district and said, please click it so we can search the whole district at once, and they did. Now they turned it back because they're mad at us. And in other districts I went through all the schools until I found one that let me search the whole district… so I found those and keep them a secret so they don't change those settings.”
Brooke Stephens, the Protect Child Health Coalition webinar “Brooke Stephens - Rated Books,” Protect Ohio Children channel, Apr 5, 2024. Transcript from the video's own captions, checked against our saved copy of the recording.
Utah State Board of Education rule draft R277-628 Draft 3, page-dated Apr 22 2024, inserts a new conflict-of-interest subsection into the sensitive-materials rule: review-committee membership policy must address 'Those responsible for procurement or the individual who brought the challenge' — six days after staff told Vice Chair Green they would 'get with Adam Herd... about procurement'. In the Apr 16 packet that presented Draft 2 (credited on the attachment list to 'Board Member Earl'), 'procurement' appears nowhere (0 hits packet-wide, with the draft text present as control)
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the two drafts, their dates and the diff / needs verification who moved the insertion
Archive copyUnlisted video, "UPU Title IX Class", uploaded Apr 23, 2024
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
Pinned: Utah HB334 (2024) deleted the two clauses that kept the warning-label law pointed at commercial pornographers. The enrolled bill, 'warning label amendments', 2024 General Session, carries the same TWO sponsors as the 2020 original - Chief Sponsor Brady Brammer and Senate Sponsor Todd D. Weiler - and amends 78B-6-2102, 2103 and 2105. In the enrolled copy's own bracket notation for deleted text it strikes '[predominately ]' twice from 2103(1), twice from 2103(5)(a), and twice from 2105(1), and strikes from 2105(1) the words '[with the intent to earn revenue or profit directly or indirectly from the distribution]'. Dated version PDFs of 78B-6-2105 confirm the boundary exactly: the version 'Effective 5/12/2020, Effective until 5/1/2024' contains predominately and the profit clause, and the version 'Effective 5/1/2024, Superseded 5/7/2025' contains neither, with no intervening version. The bill's own summary says it 'modifies certain exemptions for liability', 'changes provisions of the safe harbor protections', and 'clarifies who must give a warning'
Utah+2 · Policy / Technology / Vendors
Documented the enrolled bill, its sponsors, its bracketed deletions, and both dated code versions
Archive copyUtah Div. of Corporations business information report, homeschool adventure life LLC, business ID 14055766-0160, effective 06/26/2024, status Inactive/Administratively Dissolved
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
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documentthe Utah State Board of Education, "Sensitive Materials Removed in a Public School Setting Statewide.xlsx", sheet "Titles", the official statewide removal list linked from schools.utah.gov/curr/librarymedia
Brooke Stephens, identified as a leader of Utah Parents United, responded to Utah Rep. Sahara Hayes (D, House District 32) placing district-banned books in Little Free Libraries for Banned Books Week by posting in her own book-banning Facebook group that Hayes had distributed Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer. Stephens wrote "In Utah, it's always been illegal to give children explicit content" and "[A] person who provides the Little Free Library on their private property could also be held accountable. Private property doesn't mean you don't need to follow the law." She included an image of the statute making distribution of pornographic material by an adult a third-degree felony carrying a minimum $1,000 fine and minimum 30 days imprisonment, and she told her followers to vote for Hayes's political opponent. Salt Lake City police told Axios they had received no complaints about Hayes's book-sharing; defense attorney Clayton Simms said the conduct appeared lawful. Consequence: this is the earliest documented instance of Stephens using her Facebook group for candidate-level electoral advocacy, roughly twenty months before the Jun 2026 Davis County primary slate already in the register, and it is aimed at a sitting legislator who had criticised the book law.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented as reported by LGBTQ Nation, quoting the post the Stephens material / documented two sources for the Hayes half / supported the 'earliest documented instance' consequence, which is scoped to what the collection holds
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Documented the vote counts, from the state results feed for Davis County (not a certified canvass; the feed never flags official) / supported the primary result, Ballotpedia / documented the testimony, minutes / supported strong that this candidate is the "MELANIE MORTENSON" filed as a Utah Parents United director (state entity 12213207-0140, row last updated Apr 6, 2026): both Davis County, spelling differs, no document joins them
Supported approved minutes text provided directly; Jan. 16, 2025 consent-agenda record confirms approval of the Dec. 19 minutes; source not independently fetched
Supported approved minutes text provided directly; Jan. 16, 2025 consent-agenda record confirms approval of the Dec. 19 minutes; source not independently fetched
19 records · 6 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
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Path Forward Utah (federal tax ID 87-4336623, Ogden) e-files three Form 990-EZs with Jamie Renda as principal officer and Joseph Kerry on the board: tax year 2023 (filed Jan 17, 2025) revenue $14,397, Renda President 25 hrs/wk $0, Kerry Vice President; tax year 2024 (filed Jan 22, 2025) revenue $64,148, Renda "Founder" 40 hrs/wk $18,500, Kerry Chair; tax year 2025 (filed May 11, 2026) revenue $166,972, expenses $127,549, grants paid $5,823, Renda President 40 hrs/wk $60,000, Kerry Chair; Jamie Wadman is Treasurer on all three
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the IRS e-file XML / supported (strong) that this Joseph Kerry is the Utah State Board of Education District 2 member: exact name, both of Ogden, and Ballotpedia says the board member founded Bible Rescue, the Ogden nonprofit whose 990-N principal officer is the same name; no document states it
Utah's own campaign-finance disclosure system records 54 contributions from Utah Education Association entities in calendar year 2025 totalling 467,174.20 dollars, of which 464,874.20 dollars -- 99.5 percent -- went to a single recipient, Protect Utah Workers, the committee that ran the referendum against HB267. By source, 457,581.80 dollars is listed under the plain contributor name 'Utah Education Association', 8,092.40 dollars comes from three UniServ locals, and the union's political action committee gives 1,500 dollars in the entire year, in two payments to the Utah Democratic State Party and the Utah House Democratic Leadership Council.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Vendors / Community
Documented the records as published by the Lieutenant Governor's disclosure system, read in a browser Sep 6, 2026 / supported the general-treasury attribution, which rests on contributor-name strings
The Community Library Network (Kootenai County, ID; seven branches) moved to implement Idaho HB 710 by creating an adults-only room in one branch, pulling 140+ titles from shelves “for review,” and seeking to eliminate all-access library cards for minors; it also proposed a collection development policy barring acquisition of children's, teen or YA materials containing “abortion, police discrimination, drugs, gender identity, occult, racism, rape, suicide, violence, nontraditional families or lifestyle”
Davis school district board pulled the Sensitive Materials Appeal Committee recommendation OFF the consent agenda (a batch vote with no discussion) at the president’s request and, after discussion, tabled it until February by unanimous motion - conditioned on the district first publishing rationale information, and committee vote tallies, to its website. Consent items 1-7 were approved without it. The 5 titles (Breathless, How Beautiful the Ordinary, Lighter Than My Shadow, Lucky, The Almost Moon) returned on Feb 4, 2025 on the first appeal exhibit of the fourteen to carry a Rationale column.
Archive copyUnlisted video, "Highlight Reel of Gender Harmony Clips", uploaded Jan 27, 2025
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
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Davis school district board consent-approved (Consent Items 1-6, carried 7-0, none opposed: Gerrard, Price, Powell, Hogan, Barber, Mercer, Stevens) the Sensitive Materials Appeals Committee recommendation to remove 6 titles - Breathless, How Beautiful the Ordinary, Lighter Than My Shadow, Lucky, Storm and Fury, The Almost Moon - and to defer Drama pending a Subjective Review. First exhibit in the 14 to carry a Rationale column.
Robert Woodson and Woodson Center EVP Willie Levi Crossley meet Senate President Stuart Adams, Attorney General Derek Brown, Sen. John Johnson, other lawmakers, Utah Board of Education members and LDS Church representatives at an informal gathering in the Senate Building; KSL: "Jamie Renda, of Ogden, helped organize Thursday's meeting," it was Woodson's fourth Utah trip, and she "is forging a relationship between the Woodson Center and a new organization she is forming, Hope of Utah"
Utah+1 · Policy / Community
Documented as reported by KSL Feb 14, 2025; "Thursday" = Feb 13, 2025, and KSL's May 22, 2026 piece captions a photo of the visit "Feb. 13, 2025" / needs verification which Utah State Board of Education members attended, unnamed
A hidden TAB IN A second activist workbook IS A dated, school-by-school availability survey across nineteen utah districts. The workbook 'Feb 2025 Jordan School District' (1jIBMkz), owned by the same personal Gmail account behind the bwentzel handle, created Feb 21, 2025 and public to anyone with the link, carries eleven tabs of which seven ARE hidden. The hidden tab 'Top 12' holds 125 titles against columns for Alpine, Box Elder, Cache, Canyons, Davis, Granite, Jordan, Logan, Murray, Nebo, Park City (two schools), Provo, Salt Lake City, South Sanpete, Tooele, Wasatch, Washington and Weber - each column headed with THE date that district WAS checked, running 1-23-23 through 11-13-2023, two of them carrying the district's own library-catalog URL. Cell values are named schools and dispositions such as 'Removed', 'Removed 7/22', 'Challenged 12/19/2022' and 'Retained after district appeal', and two columns total the number of schools where each book is found. Further hidden tabs give sora availability per title for davis (109 titles, with a 'Voted to be removed?' column) and for jordan (109 titles), a 37-title 'JSD Brookes Temporary file' with an 'on brochure' column, and an 11-title 'Books in Layton HS' carrying challenge dates. A visible tab, 'JSD Unreported Removals gone', tracks 61 titles against twelve named Jordan schools with cells reading the literal word 'gone'
Documented the workbook, its ownership, its tab states and every column and count / documented as the sheet's claim every district and school availability cell / needs verification any use of it in an HB243 notice or a statewide filing
A tab in the activist workbook tracks removals the district never announced, and a second column assembles the three-district case for putting a title on the state list. The workbook created Feb 21, 2025 for Jordan School District carries eleven sheets of which seven are hidden. Its visible tab named for unreported removals holds 61 titles laid out as an availability grid across thirteen named Jordan schools, with 31 cells marked simply 'gone' across 24 titles, sitting beside longhand equivalents in neighbouring cells such as 'No longer showing at Valley HS' and 'Removed, now showing in Valley High Catalog'. How that data is produced is documented by the workbook's own column headers rather than assumed: a person opens each district's public library catalog, searches title by title on a dated pass, and records what is present at which school, with a later pass marking gone where a title that was there before no longer appears. Headers carry the catalog address, the date of the pass and workarounds for districts whose catalogs cannot be searched district-wide. The first column of the same tab is headed 'Removed in Utah' and annotates 13 titles with the other districts that had removed them, ten of them reading Davis and Washington, while the second column's header states that an orange highlight means the title has met the statewide removal threshold
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology
Documented every count and every quoted header, read this turn from the sealed workbook / supported that the tab is tracking progress toward the statutory three-district threshold / needs verification whether any title was pursued in a third district after being logged here at two
Where the Utah operation had not rated a title, its workbook linked a completed Florida complaint instead. Three titles in the Feb 2025 Jordan workbook carry, in place of a rating-report link, a filled Santa Rosa County Florida citizen's request form for re-evaluation of instructional materials. Each of the three cells says so in the same words, that the title is not rated yet and that all districts still need to be searched. All three forms name the same initiating filer, a documented Escambia-area complainant, and carry her objection text in full with page citations and the Florida statutory hooks 847.012 and HB 1069. One of the forms carries a handling instruction in its own header stating that the textual evidence may not be deleted or altered in any form or fashion and that the complainant's address and phone number must be blacked out before publishing on the county website. The links sit in four separate tabs, repeated across the per-district columns
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology
Documented the cells, their wording and the four tabs / documented the three documents, fetched unauthenticated this turn at HTTP 200 / supported that the Florida complaint is functioning as a substitute for a missing rating / needs verification whether any Utah challenge was ever filed citing them
Archive copyUnlisted video, "Time to Speak Up", uploaded Mar 1, 2025
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
Same day as the shutdown notice, RatedBooks founder Brooke Stephens posted as Admin in the 'LaVerna in the Library - Utah's Mary in the Library' Facebook group, attaching the notice graphic: 'RatedBooks.org is grateful for all of the work and reviews freely given by booklooks.org. RatedBooks.org will continue to provide links to all of booklooks.org's reports and will continue aiding in organizing and providing book reviews.'
Davis school district board, Sensitive Materials Appeal (moved from Consent #7 to a Business Item): the motion to uphold the Objective Committee's determination to retain Drama and remove Twisted and The Hate U Give failed 3-4 (in favor: Pres. Brigit Gerrard, Julie Powell, Kristen Hogan; opposed: VP Emily Price, Alisa Mercer, Joani Stevens, Michelle Barber). Emily Price's substitute motion to approve the Appeals Committee recommendation carried 4-3 (the same split reversed). The board's pro-removal minority on these titles = Gerrard, Powell, Hogan.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community ·
1 source
documentDavis School District Board of Education minutes, Regular Meeting Mar 18, 2025 (BoardBook Premier, org 914)
Minnesota Reformer, covering the ACLU-Minnesota/Education Minnesota suits against St. Francis Area Schools filed that day, reported: 'BookLooks is shutting down, according to a message on its website, but a similar organization — ratedbooks.org out of Utah, is maintaining the BookLooks archive'; the earliest located press statement of the RatedBooks absorption, published one day after BookLooks ceased operation
Four days after BookLooks.org removed its reports, that same Gmail address (Brooke Stephens) creates on its Drive 'BookLook.info Rated Report Form' (a Google Doc reproducing booklook.info's Florida-statute intake form and its entire Plan of Action page, 03:21Z) and 'Copy of Report Template' (cell-identical to booklook.info's 2022 template sheet, 03:25Z); both are the buttons 'BookLook.info Review Form' and the doc's template link on ratedbooks.org/ratingteams, whose earliest Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture (Apr 4, 2025) already carries them
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology
Documented the owner, both dates and the sharing, Drive API Sep 13, 2026 / documented the contents, exported and compared / documented the page's first capture / supported that the page was new then, since Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) coverage of ratedbooks.org subpages is sparse (ratingscale's first capture is Oct 10, 2025)
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Verified Aug 20, 2026: the timestamp this receipt named did not exist; Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) was serving a different capture and returning 200. Re-pointed to the capture actually served.
Vicki Baggett writes to Supt. Leonard, the Escambia board AND FL Attorney General James Uthmeier objecting that library committees voted 6-2 and 8-0 to keep two titles; she asks the board to 'remove books that have already been removed in other Florida school districts', says 'several school districts are now following your lead', cites a 'master submission list' Google Sheet, and links a YouTube 'video Review that I have made available to the public'
Florida · Libraries ·
1 source
documentVicki Baggett letter May 27, 2025 to Supt. Leonard, the Escambia board and AG James Uthmeier, in the district's own published reconsideration record
Asked by a self-described ad hoc alliance whether students still access sexually explicit material through the schools, the eventual appointee to the state board's District 7 answers yes and grounds it in a book her own child bought at a school book fair; she leaves the follow-up asking which provisions of state law facilitate that access unanswered
All six applicants for the Utah State Board of Education District 7 vacancy answer Coalition Utah's question whether students still have access to sexually explicit materials through the schools; every one says yes, and only Kris Kimball names a statute, saying the current law requires a threshold of LEAs before a book with porn is removed and that a violating book should be removed immediately without a threshold of LEAs; Glen Burton, Jesse Curtis and Bruce Williams answer with Chromebooks and web filters, Douglas Wagstaff says there has been a major drop in explicit materials in media centers because the Utah State Board of Education issues frequently updated lists, and Erin Longacre answers with a book her child bought at a book fair; five of six leave the follow-up on which provisions of state law facilitate access blank
Utah+1 · Libraries / Policy
Documented each answer bound to its candidate by tab id, not position (e-n-tab-content-19145192NN to aria-labelledby e-n-tab-title-19145192NN); documented as each candidate's own assertion every factual claim inside an answer
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Escambia County School Board directs the Superintendent, 5-0, to 'eliminate all pornographic or age-inappropriate books from district media centers, as identified on the Department of Education's book removal list, without further review'; same motion delays media-center book purchases and donations until a screening process exists. Motion Fetsko, second Adams; yes: Adams, Fetsko, Williams, Bergosh, Harrell
The Utah legislature’s audit office's Jun 18, 2025 process audit reports delayed removal during a challenge and confusion about reporting outcomes during the post-2024 policy transition. The report does not name the affected district or connect either issue to Push or Granite.
Utah+1 · Libraries / Policy
Documented unnamed audit observations; needs verification title-specific or district-specific explanation
A political party's state central committee votes in three rounds and sends the governor three names for the vacant state board seat; at least six people sought it. No voter is involved at any point in the process
The Eleventh Circuit dismisses the Escambia School Board's appeal in PEN America v. Escambia County School Board for lack of appellate jurisdiction. Two jurisdictional holdings and no merits: the Board cannot appeal because the legislative privilege belongs to its individual members, and the five members cannot appeal because they never participated below - their filed declarations were 'substantially less participation than the school district in Finn'. Panel Branch, Abudu and Kidd
Florida+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community ·
1 source
documentPEN American Center v. Escambia County School Board, 11th Cir. No. 24-13896, unpublished per curiam opinion, Jul 15, 2025
The opinion quotes Baggett's stated grounds directly, calling her 'a county teacher': the books allegedly contained 'pornography', 'race-baiting' and 'explicit language', 'encourage[d] pedophilia', and presented an 'LGBTQ agenda using penguins'. The five Board members are named in the caption as Interested Parties-Appellants: Kevin Adams, Paul Fetsko, Patty Hightower, William Slayton, David Williams
Florida+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community ·
1 source
documentPEN American Center v. Escambia County School Board, 11th Cir. No. 24-13896, unpublished per curiam opinion, Jul 15, 2025
Documented both events / needs verification any relationship between them
1 source
documentEscambia County School Board agenda item, Jul 15, 2025 Regular Meeting, item 44.A 'Media Center Materials Removed In Compliance with School Board Directive'
RatedBooks' saved master list assigns Bag of Bones by Stephen King a Date Added value of Jul 28, 2025 and a 5* rating. Davis's submission table records Brooke Stephens's challenge on Aug 14, 17 days later; the produced form was printed/exported Aug 15, 18 days later. The saved list contains six Stephen King titles, two of which appear in the compared statewide list: Bag of Bones and Different Seasons.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors
Documented recorded fields and named submitter; needs verification launch time or causal effect
The governor appoints a signer of the 2024 open letter promoting the book-rating site to the state board that regulates school library materials, and never announces it; she assumes office Aug 14, 2025 and faces voters for the first time on Nov 3, 2026
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the appointment / documented the non-announcement, control-backed
11 records · 3 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
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The Utah State Board of Education President Matt Hymas is the guest on Jen Brown's UCC Monday Zoom. Announced 07-30 and 08-01 (posts 4456, 4468); on 08-02 she writes "I talked to Rep Ivory about sensitive materials in the schools and if there were questions he would like me to ask Matt Hymas ... Rep Ivory said this information about the harms of sexually explicit material to minors used to be on the state website, but after he started working on this issue it was removed ... He wants to know why it was removed" (4472); on 08-06 she posts the Zoom cloud recording with passcode (4486); on 08-07 she recounts a parent's account of a school Chromebook and adds "Rep Nicholeen Peck is working on this with other legislators" (4493). The recording now returns "This recording does not exist".
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
Documented the posts / needs verification what was said on the call (recording gone; the two Aug 25, 2025 Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) captures are client-rendered shells)
Citizens Defending Freedom uploads " Explicit Titles in Schools Spreadsheet.xlsx" (Drive id 19hvR30ddLd03gvKhfMACgalPi3v1nMGf, owner citizensdefendingfreedom@gmail.com) to its public Drive folder "Book Reports and Spreadsheet", which its page citizensdefendingfreedom.com/explicit-school-library-books-resource and its Florida "Challenging Harmful Books" toolkit PDFs link. The sheet lists 779 titles rated L3 to L5 with 778 links into CDF's own "Book Reports" folder (files named "L3 <Title> by <Author>.pdf"); its guide (PDF author Stephanie Bontell, Aug 8, 2025) says the ratings were "originally informed by the now-defunct BookLooks" and that BookLooks' reports, "no longer available on their website," "are represented in our spreadsheet". Last batch added Sep 2, 2026. The same folder holds "Copy of TinyURL Links to all RatedBooks & BookLooks Book Reports", a Google Sheet owned by bhrockett64@gmail.com created Mar 9, 2026: a snapshot, tab for tab, of RatedBooks' own master index "Archived TinyURL Links to all RatedBooks & BookLooks Book Reports" (1bVeIscVTF2E9w5EkweyGd_UFuq4hM4SAXytmgWQHB3s, owner that same Gmail address, the sheet ratedbooks.org/reports links; 32 of its 33 tabs hidden, incl. "TBTC List", "Not in TBTC List", "22726 upload"). 543 of CDF's 779 titles are in that copy; ratings agree on 533 of 544 shared. On a sample of 4 of CDF's 775 report PDFs, three are RatedBooks' own post-BookLooks Google-Docs reports (one byte-identical, two the same document with a "Final Report Pending" watermark) for titles RatedBooks added in mid-2025.
Florida+2 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors
Documented owners, dates and folder placement, from the Drive API and the folder pages read in a browser / documented both workbooks, the guide and the source sheet, read directly / documented the report lineage on the sample of 4 / needs verification who operates bhrockett64 (web search on the handle: nothing)
The Davis Bag of Bones production contains a four-page challenge form and a seven-page attached report bearing Generated by RatedBooks.org. Its Aug 15, 2025 print/export date is separate from the Aug 14, 12:18 submission recorded by Davis for Brooke Stephens. Davis records an objective determination on Sep 26 and an appeal-expiry date of Nov 12. The AI comment appears in the researcher-compiled Let Utah Read tracker, not a demonstrated Davis staff annotation. Utah State Board of Education records the statewide threshold on Feb 13, 2026.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented produced form, attached report and district submission fields; supported tracker provenance from intake account; needs verification AI authorship
On Aug 14, 2025 at 1:05:41 p.m. MDT, Ken Ivory asked Brian Barnett to challenge Bag of Bones and supplied a report link. At 1:17:12 a.m. MDT on Aug 16, Barnett replied that he had submitted the form. The saved comparison reports matching text and links in the Davis form, whose print/export date is Aug 15; Davis separately identifies Brooke Stephens as its Aug 14 submitter. These records establish a document connection and Barnett's report of submission, not the exact Jordan filing time.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community
Documented email request, reply and Davis submitter; supported retained text-comparison result; needs verification exact Jordan filing time, authorship or coordinated filing
21 records · 10 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
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documentFollett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Content news release, Sep 23, 2025
Archive copyUnlisted video, "Charlie Kirk Was a Role Model for the Freedom to Speak, Live and Believe According to Conscience", uploaded Sep 17, 2025
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The video is unlisted: reachable only by direct URL and absent from the channel, its feeds and search. It is cited by title and date rather than linked, because publishing the link would make findable something the uploader chose not to list.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
Documented 404 live and absent from the WordPress API on Sep 28, 2026; last Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) 200 captures 2025-07 to Oct 6, 2025 / supported removal in a site restructure (new Issues pages created Oct 19, 2025)
Utah moms FOR america registers as a Utah domestic nonprofit corporation, Business ID 14619261-0140, status Active/Current, "Solicits Charitable Contribution: No." Principal Information, all last-updated the same day, lists four people: an incorporator and a treasurer who share a surname and a city and appear nowhere else in these records, Officer brooke stephens (Layton), Director cari bartholomew (Payson), who is also the registered agent (a company’s official contact person) and whose address is the entity's own
Utah+2 · Technology / Vendors / Community ·
Documented the filing / supported strong the Stephens identification
1 source
Archive copyUtah moms FOR america, Utah domestic nonprofit corporation, Business ID 14619261-0140, effective Oct 9, 2025
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Utah the Utah legislature’s audit office transmitted Report 2025-28, 'A Review of School Library Books: Questionable Content Shows the Need for More Robust Oversight'; sample drawn from a 186-title ratedbooks.org list (itself based on the 'now-defunct' booklooks.org rating system) supplied by 'a concerned legislator,' 7 districts reviewed, settling on a 22-book sample (20 found plus 2 added 'based on legislative concern'); auditors classified 21 of 22 (95%) as containing statutorily-defined sexual conduct and 16 of 22 (73%) as containing nudity; the Legislative Audit Subcommittee received the presentation and voted (one dissent) to refer 'a review of school library books' to two committees
Documented report methods and attributed findings; supported hearing transcription where not checked against original audio
1 source
documentUtah the Utah legislature’s audit office Report 2025-28, 'A Review of School Library Books: Questionable Content Shows the Need for More Robust Oversight'
17 records · 5 with receipts · 5 themes · 1 unverified
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Archive copyOperator's Nov 2025 newsletter announcing the National Book Rating Index members-only index "coming end of 2025" at $5/month or $50 lifetime
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Rep. Ivory emails Jordan school district board member Lisa Dean (CC: board member Brian Barnett, Brooke Stephens, and five others) under the recycled subject 'Greenhouse classroom at HHS': attaches the Utah legislature’s audit office 2025-28 audit and two 'Books 4s and 5s remaining in JSD' spreadsheets, asks the district to 'bring action to have the materials rated 4 and 5 removed, and those rated 2 and 3 scrutinized for harmful or sensitive material', presses for district-wide catalog search, and points to 'the parent developed website'. Dean represents West Jordan, Ivory's own House community
The search limit the challenge operation had been working around for nine months was removed by the district and its catalog vendor inside a twenty-minute email reply, with the rating operator on copy. In Feb 2025 the activist workbook for Jordan recorded that district as not searchable district wide and worked around it school by school, carrying thirteen separate named school columns that were checked individually. On 6 Nov 2025 Representative Ken Ivory emailed a Jordan board member asking why parents could not search the district's entire catalog at once, unlike most other districts, and in the same message urged the district to remove everything rated 4 or 5 and scrutinise what was rated 2 or 3. Twenty minutes later the board member replied that the district had worked with its catalog vendor to provide a work-around allowing district-wide searches, gave step-by-step instructions, and said the vendor would provide a full-blown enhancement soon that would work more seamlessly. Brooke Stephens was copied on the reply
Documented each of the three elements independently, the workbook read from the sealed export and the emails from the legislature's own records production / supported that the workbook's constraint and the legislator's request are the same constraint / needs verification that anyone in the email chain knew of that workbook
The Utah State Board of Education Member Joann Brinton gave the whole Utah State Board of Education copies of W. Cleon Skousen's 'The 5,000 Year Leap' as a gift during the November board member message, describing it as 'based on the 28 principles of the Constitution' and saying she had taught it to her eighth grader in a leadership class at American Leadership Academy in Spanish Fork; Member Christina Boggess was said to have studied the book and to have an audiobook version available to other members
archived pageTake Back the Classroom backing API, districts endpoint for state code UT, Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) snapshot Aug 19, 2026
In the Utah State Board of Education's response to the two Utah legislature’s audit office audits before the Education Interim Committee, Vice Chair Amanda Bollinger turns from the "reactive" to the "proactive side": "What can we do to look at how library books are getting into our library? ... sometimes the companies we're buying books from, it comes in bulk ... we need to make sure we're holding those companies accountable. In discussions with Representative Ivory, there are a lot of new tools and resources that are going to and are available recently with the use of AI to look at what books can be screened using some tools like that. I know I met with a local LEA in my area recently that has been looking into what some of those tools are." Nine months before the Utah State Board of Education's $60,000 School Library Materials Acquisition and Procurement Review, the vendor-and-screening framing is on the record from the board's vice chair, attributed to Ivory.
Utah+1 · Libraries / Vendors
Documented the words, two independent automatic transcription passes agree / documented the speaker: self-introduction at 00:38:08, the chair's "Thank you, Vice Chair Bollinger" at 00:52:58 immediately after, and the minutes naming Bollinger and Newey as the only the Utah State Board of Education responders / needs verification which tools, which LEA
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Queen Creek USD (AZ) Governing Board held a study session and first read of revised Policy 5-209 'School Libraries, Media, and Resource Centers,' presented by an associate superintendent, two board members raising workload/syllabus points; the Board then approved the revised policy on second read the same night as part of its consent agenda (item 6.F), citing A.R.S. 13-3501/13-3506 and 15-120.03(C) as new legal authority, requiring classroom-library inventory review and 60-day public posting of new materials
At a Utah State Board of Education Study Session / usdb Governing Board meeting (video 03:45:09), Member Green delivers the full supply-chain recitation: 'reaching out to librarians to understand the procurement process... curating an order, picking that, shipping that, receiving that, inventorying that, cataloging that'; 03:46-03:48: 'these industries to push these novels... no accountability... the biggest market in our nation, which is public education and its libraries'
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community ·
2 sources
clip“Reaching out to librarians to understand the procurement process” (38s)
“I've spent some time reaching out to librarians to understand the procurement process. Like, what is it? What does it take to get a book? And if you stock your business shelves, you know that there are many, many, many levels that go into curating an order, picking that, shipping that, receiving that, inventorying that, cataloging that, placing it on the shelves. And then the process of that being used.”
Member Green, Utah State Board of Education study session, Dec 5, 2025, at 3:45:09 in the meeting recording. Transcript from machine transcription of the cut file; two independent passes agree on every word quoted.
video'Dec 5, 2025 | the Utah State Board of Education Study Session Meeting and Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind | the Utah State Board of Education', the Utah State Board of Education Media
Three days after her earlier message in the same thread ('Re: Draft Legislation: School Materials Amendments', to Utah legislative staffer Tyler Keetch, CC Rep. Nicholeen P. Peck and Micah Wixom), Stephens relays a Texas drafting tactic at 6:55 AM MST: "FYI from Texas: When working on legislation in your state(s) to protect children from these books, it helps to include that if books have a QR code or refer students/minors to a website, they cannot not be accessible to children. We got this item added to Texas' SB13 and I'm having success forcing School districts to remove books that violate this part of our new law." The message lands in the Utah drafting loop roughly two weeks before HB197 is introduced
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology
Documented the email and its recipients / needs verification whether the 'we' and 'I' are Stephens or a Texas source
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Transparent Utah shows a single FY2026 payment of $135,000 from the State of Utah to Hope of Utah, dated Aug 6 2025. The enacted appropriation was $150,000 (S.B. 3, 2025 GS, Item 184), so the payment is $15,000 under it, not over. Rep. Lisonbee sponsored H.A.R. 143 (cobi issue 23854) requesting $58,000 one-time + $250,000 ongoing; the ongoing request was denied in full and the one-time was enacted at $150,000. S.B. 3 states intent to grant $150,000 in FY2026 'for empowering local community leaders and nonprofits' (no mention of books/libraries)
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
The Utah State Board of Education emailed/notified LEA sensitive-materials reps that three titles -- 'Wicked,' 'Nineteen Minutes,' and 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' -- met the statewide threshold and crossed it the same day (Davis, Tooele, Washington), bringing the cumulative statewide total to 22; 'One Last Stop' (also removed independently at Tooele on Dec 1, 2025) did NOT appear on the statewide list; 'Wicked' was also one of the 22 books in the 2025-28 audit sample
Utah · Libraries ·
1 source
documentthe Utah State Board of Education, 'List of titles to be removed from Utah public schools'
The Vonnegut Estate, three named authors, and two anonymous students, represented by ACLU of Utah, filed the original 59-page Complaint in D. Utah (2:26-cv-00010-RJS-CMR) against the Utah AG, the Utah State Board of Education, and multiple districts -- a First/14th Amendment Sec. 1983 challenge to HB29's single-passage rule and Statewide Ban. Per the original Complaint: Davis ~77 books removed under the Per Se Ban, Washington ~52, Granite ~71, Salt Lake City 22.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology ·
1 source
documentOriginal Complaint, Kurt Vonnegut Estate v. Brown, D. Utah 2:26-cv-00010, filed Jan 6, 2026, as published by ACLU of Utah
Brooke Stephens sends a mass email titled "Reasons your should support HB 197" to roughly 85 Republican Utah legislators at 10:23 AM. Writing "In my work with RatedBooks," she argues for the bill's requirement that the Utah State Board of Education furnish LEAs a review list (lines 299-309), recounting that she asked Davis School District to link to her ratings and "They said they don't use resources from private citizens; they will only use something from the USBE"; that she then asked Utah State Board of Education board members to circulate "our monthly list" and only one reported doing so; and that on Oct 14, 2025 she asked the State Superintendent to share flagged materials with schools and was told "she needs the legislature to do that"
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community ·
1 source
Archive copyUtah Legislature Utah public-records law release: email 'Reasons your should support HB 197', Jan 12, 2026, 2pp
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Cole Kelley, a sitting member of the Utah State Board of Education and a 29-year teacher at American Fork High School, sues the Utah Education Association in Utah's 3rd District Court together with the Freedom Foundation, alleging violations of the Utah Truth in Advertising Act. The claim is that the UEA published 'UEA member dues are never used for political activities' on its website, X and Facebook on or about Mar 26, 2025; that the Freedom Foundation notified the union on May 1, 2025 that the statement was false; and that the UEA then revised it to 'UEA member dues are never used for political parties or candidates', which the suit says is still false. The plaintiffs seek 2,000 dollars in statutory damages each plus attorney fees, a public correction and an injunction. Counsel is Vogeler pllc. The UEA said it had not been served and does not comment on pending litigation.
Archive copyUtah entity record for S&S Apps LLC, entity 12115414-0160
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Feb 2026
22 records · 10 with receipts · 6 themes
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documentFollett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Content news release, Feb 19, 2026
documentDavis School District board exhibit 'Dec 17, 2025 Sensitive Materials Appeals', attachment to the Feb 3, 2026 Regular Meeting consent agenda (a batch vote with no discussion)
Utah Moms for America posted a 59-second explainer titled "SB197 explained: graphic content out of school libraries and hold vendors accountable", in which the speaker says she "went to give a public comment about SB 197" and describes it as "the digital front for graphic material", proactive rather than reactive, and "about holding vendors accountable". The bill she describes is HB197, School Materials Amendments. Utah's 2026 SB197 is Transportation Funding and Governance Amendments.
Brand video "We love reading!" (2:02, 2 views): the operator self-identifies as "founder of ratedbooks.org," cites Piaget's stages of cognitive development as rationale, and states the aggregation is weighted — "specifically family-friendly reviews. We put these reviews alongside secular organizations so parents can see the differences and decide who they trust." Named sources: The Good and the Beautiful, Rated Reads, Plugged In by Focus on the Family, Christian parent reviews. Claims "nearly 17,000 books." Closes: "Ratedbooks.org is a proud partner with Hope of [Utah]"
A sitting state board member hosts a nine-video web show over eight weeks, February to Apr 2026, with two other board members and a self-described state director of a national mothers' organization as guests; audience is 8 to 34 views per episode
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the inventory / supported (automatic transcription) any quoted wording
Across all six episodes featuring the state board member who authored the school-library procurement addendum, libraries never come up: `librar` returns 0, as do `porn`, `obscen`, `ratedbooks`, `sensitive material`, `HB 374`, `addendum` and `procurement`, over roughly 164,000 characters of transcript
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
A sitting member of the Utah State Board of Education appears as the sole guest on Utah Moms for America's podcast, in a 51-minute live episode devoted to his lawsuit against his teachers union. The host introduces him: 'joining me is Utah State Board of Education board member Cole Kelly, a veteran teacher and member of the Utah State Board of Education who has made the significant decision to bring a lawsuit against his teachers union. His decision raises serious questions about representation, accountability and balance of power within our education system.' Cole Kelley holds District 12. The episode aired live Feb 25, 2026 and was posted Feb 26, 2026, and had 6 views when saved.
24 records · 7 with receipts · 5 themes · 2 unverified
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The 2026 challenge worklist is owned by the same account as the ratings workbook, and it is open for anyone to comment on. A Drive lookup on the public document behind "Books to Challenge in DSD" returns as its owner the same personal Gmail account behind the bwentzel handle, created Mar 1, 2026, last modified Jul 28, 2026, and a permission set of exactly two entries: the owner, and 'anyone' at the role of commenter rather than viewer. The same account owns the ratings workbook and the warning-label complaint form template already recorded here. The commenter setting matches the instruction sheet that circulates with the list, which ends its loop with 'comment on the list' and then 'Repeat'. The modification date is the same day as the last challenge wave in the district's own challenge record
Documented the owner, both dates, the title and the permission set, fetched this turn / documented the instruction sheet's wording / supported that the permission was set in order to receive those comments / needs verification who operates the account
archived pageMuckRock release: New Braunfels school district (TX) Public Information Act production 'onshelf', 330 emails, completed Mar 20, 2026 (archived Aug 2, 2026)
On a sitting state board member's show, a guest who identifies herself on air as the state director of a national mothers' organization gives an organizing instruction for school-district meetings: recruit "school district ambassadors," never attend alone, "you need at least three people for them to consider you valid"
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the self-description, the speaker identified first-hand, not by software / supported (automatic transcription) exact wording
documentDavis School District board exhibit 'Mar 3, 2026 Sensitive Materials Appeals', attachment to the Mar 3, 2026 Regular Meeting consent agenda (a batch vote with no discussion)
Brooke Stephens addressed the Davis School District Board of Education during public comment. The minutes record her appearance in a single summary line, among roughly a dozen speakers most of whom are logged as raising governance questions: "Ms. Brooke Stephens - concerns regarding books in school libraries with possible solutions." This is the same meeting at which the board consent-approved (passed in a batch vote, with no discussion), unanimously, the Sensitive Materials Appeals Committee recommendation to remove six titles (BBA-1159).
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented that she spoke and the minutes' summary of her topic
On the morning of HB197's Senate Government Operations hearing, UCC's Telegram channel posts an email script to the seven committee members: "Support lines 198-200, which require LEAs to review books for sensitive material before they are made available to students," explicit content "entering schools at an alarming rate through industry recommendations," and "screening happens before the shelf," linking Megan's Story (youtu.be/SxuqYrFPLM4), a Cache Lighthouse Project video that ratedbooks.org's home page links. That afternoon she posts from the hearing that Rep. Peck showed advertisements in the Utah Education Network databases, that Jennie Earl (the Utah State Board of Education) confirmed them, and that the committee held the bill.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
Documented the posts / documented the ratedbooks.org link to the video, from the Jul 14, 2026 site scrape / supported (her report) what Peck showed and Earl said
The public Google Sheet "Books to Challenge in DSD", which is not a district document but a file on a personal account, lists 81 titles and logs challenge-submission dates in this window, each keyed to a RatedBooks.org rating report -- a forward worklist, mostly distinct from already-banned titles. Specific submission-batch dates observed in the sheet: >=5 titles marked 'submitted 3-13-26'; ~a dozen further titles marked 'submitted 3/28/26'; another batch marked 'submitted 5/2/2026.'
The Utah State Board of Education is not advised by a single assistant attorney general. Its board packets and minutes show several concurrently, assigned per agenda item, all Utah AG's office staff at agutah.gov. The Oct 7, 2021 board minutes list in one attendance block "Michelle Beus, Assistant Attorney General" and "Bryan Quesenberry, Assistant Attorney General". The Mar 13, 2026 board packet prints contact blocks naming Ashley Biehl and Michelle Beus together, both Assistant Attorney General, on one item, and Angela Doan, AAG, alongside Director of Law and Professional Practices Ben Rasmussen on another. Neither Biehl nor Beus has left the record: both still appear in that Mar 2026 packet. Separately, the Salt Lake Tribune of Aug 25, 2026 quotes Assistant Attorney General Lora Cooper advising the Standards and Assessment Committee on the Davis Fight Club appeal. Consequence: the phrase "our previous AAG", used by Utah State Board of Education staff at the Jun 5, 2026 committee meeting when recalling a caution about ratedbooks.org (BBA-1187), cannot be resolved to a named predecessor by tracking a turnover, because there is no single seat to track.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented the concurrent-counsel structure, from the Utah State Board of Education's own minutes and packet / supported the reading of the phrase / documented as a controlled null the absence from the captured spoken record
The Utah State Board of Education held its annual opma and Utah public-records law training as agenda item 7.1, a Study Session from 2:30 to 3:30 PM, at CivicClerk event 562 ("USBE Standing Committees/USDB/Study Session"). The Utah public-records law half was presented by BEN rasmussen, the board's records officer and Director of Law and Professional Practices - the officer the Utah State Board of Education's own Utah public-records law policy 02-04 designates and the addressee of the pending Green/Brinton records request. He taught the board that Utah public-records law favours disclosure: "When it passed, the legislative intent highly favors access to public records by the general public. Easy and reasonable access to unrestricted public records prevent abuse of confidentiality and favors public access whenever there is countervailing interests of equal weight. So when you see appeals go up to the courts... those are generally always favoring the public over the government agency where possible." The opma half was presented by an assistant attorney general addressed on tape only as "Bill". Consequence: the board received an hour of records-law instruction from its own records officer nine weeks before Vice Chair Brinton moved to strike the confidentiality promise from the model policy's book-challenge process.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the agenda item, the presenters, the annual requirement and every quotation, from the agenda and the meeting's own 3Play transcript
Three weeks after hosting a sitting state board member, Utah Moms for America's podcast hosts a sitting state legislator, Rep. Trevor Lee, for a 20-minute live episode on social and emotional learning. The host's own framing: 'Welcome to the Utah Moms for America podcast... my guest is Representative Trevor Lee... one of the most talked about and often controversial voices in Utah politics right now.'
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented the appearance and the framing, two independent automatic transcription passes
One committee sitting disposed of the whole 2026 challenge wave, and the books stayed on the shelves for another seventy-six days. Davis School District's own book-challenge working file, 27 tabs covering every challenge-submission date from Oct 22, 2024 to Jul 27, 2026, records 97 titles and 662 individual copies. Eight of those titles were challenged on four different dates between Feb 23 and Mar 13 of 2026, and their process trails then converge exactly: an objective review form sent for all eight on Mar 16, an objective committee decision of Remove for all eight on Mar 21, a notification email for all eight on May 18, and catalog deletion plus a public-list update for all eight on Jun 5. Fifty-eight copy rows in the file carry a dated deletion and forty-six of them fall on just two days, Feb 5, 2026 and Jun 5, 2026. Across the whole file the median gap between the challenge date and the public list being updated is 112 days, with a range of 0 to 305
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented every count, date and trail, computed this turn from the district's own file / needs verification whether the objective step here is the bright-line statutory path, which the file never says
The only follow-up anywhere in our records to the board member's January corruption allegation: on her own show she says "anybody who doesn't believe there's corruption on the board has not been watching the board" -- and adds no named party, document, meeting date or dollar figure
Utah · Community
Documented the speaker, settled by ear / documented as her assertion the allegation
Apr 2026
31 records · 14 with receipts · 6 themes
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documentFollett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Content news release, Apr 30, 2026
404 Media (Woodcock) publishes an article documenting the operator's in-house use of commercial LLMs inside RatedBooks' human review loop -- described as AI-assisted, not AI-generated; the same article separately covers blockade (a Delaware-lane AI book-report generator) as a distinct example of the same trend, not one operation
Controlled null. The Utah State Board of Education Standards and Assessment Committee met on Apr 3, 2026, the meeting immediately preceding the May 8, 2026 session where the school-library procurement thread begins, and it contains no library content whatsoever. In the full transcript, 1,844 lines, the words library, librarian, book and sensitive never appear, and neither does the statute number 53G-10. Controls in the same file: assessment 30, standards 17, audit 48, ' the ' 568. The committee's audit discussion that day is the CTE audit report, presented by Kevin John, Deputy Audit Executive of the Utah State Board of Education's Internal Audit Department, on a Career and Technical Education audit the board prioritised in Mar 2024. Consequence: the library-procurement chain (BBA-1191 onward) begins on May 8, 2026 as a checked boundary, not an assumption about where the captures happen to start.
Utah+1 · Libraries / Vendors
Documented the null and every control, counted directly in the transcript
documentDavis School District board exhibit 'Apr 7, 2026 Sensitive Materials Appeals', attachment to the Apr 7, 2026 Regular Meeting consent agenda (a batch vote with no discussion)
Plaintiffs filed their Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss (Doc 114, 24pp); the brief states 'hundreds, if not thousands' of books were removed under the Per Se Ban and 28 titles under the Statewide Ban; arguing authors have standing, this is not a subsidy case since the books were already shelved, and library removal is not government speech; characterized the AG's guidance as shifting between a Miller-for-minors 'as a whole' standard (Memo #1) and bright-line rules with no holistic review (Memo #2)
Utah+1 · Libraries / Technology ·
1 source
documentCourtListener/recap docket, Kurt Vonnegut Estate, The v. Brown, D. Utah 2:26-cv-00010, filed Jan 6, 2026
Utah Moms for America publishes a 59-second YouTube short, "Are school libraries crossing the line? Let's discuss!" (OY8qCV64W_c, 163 views when saved), in which a speaker cites the American Library Association president's webpage as stating "her intent and her support is for queer material to be put into the libraries", concedes "it's not like this is banning books", argues instead for ratings and parental transparency, and then closes: "a lot of people will say it can't be pornography if it doesn't have images. But a lot is, as you said, images. It's in graphic novels especially"
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community ·
1 source
videoUtah Moms for America, “Are school libraries crossing the line? Let’s discuss!” (59s)
Utah Moms for America channel, published Apr 9, 2026, 163 views when saved. Offset 48s is where the closing passage begins. The words are on tape (documented); the speaker is (supported) — an ear identification, not a speaker-labeled record, and “as you said” shows it is dialogue. Transcribed by a single machine pass, with no channel captions available to agree or disagree.
Utah Moms for America published a 59-second YouTube clip in which Utah State Board of Education District 14 candidate Nichole Beecher Isom says the American Library Association president's webpage states that 'her intent and her support is for queer material to be put into the libraries', concedes 'it's not like this is banning books', and argues instead for ratings and parental transparency in school libraries. The speaker is identified by the burned-in lower third 'Nichole Beecher Isom / State Board of Ed #14' carried for the first 47.7 seconds. The clip was published at 14:28:56 MDT, 91 minutes before the release timestamp of the 29:58 Utah Moms for America candidate interview it is cut from, and its description reads 'Watch the full video to find out more.'
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the clip, its content and the on-screen speaker ID
The operator uploaded two National Book Rating Index videos demonstrating removal-target selection against a Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use)/Follett (the company behind the Destiny school catalog software) catalog export supplied to her, tracking HB29's 3-district threshold, describing a paid list-running service for parents targeting districts; neither video names a district or a school, and the named Davis school district high school appears only in a third video uploaded Jun 1, 2026; separately, The Signpost (Weber State) quoted her: 'Now we have AI tools that can scan it as well.'
The National Book Rating Index product video "Running Lists for School Districts" (4:28, 4 views): same Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) Follett (the company behind the Destiny school catalog software) export workflow, but addressed to parents, not to the district — "I'm running some lists for some parents in a school district" — and the sortable columns are named, with the LGBTQ column's purpose stated: "The other columns that you can sort is, you know, LGBTQ. So parents can use this to opt their children out if they do or do not want those. At least they're marked CRT. This is a limited right now, removed... and is challenged"
Both export-workflow videos — one addressed to a school district (ifJ6IsHIfUw), one to parents (v_EO1Mk3ntI) — open by requiring a Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) Follett (the company behind the Destiny school catalog software) catalog export as the product's input — "Destiny Follett can export either as a spreadsheet or as a PDF... always ask for an Excel file" — and the operator names the export's own data defects: no ISBNs, inconsistent author-name formats, and duplicate records requiring manual merging
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Christina Boggess's YouTube channel @cb4ed broadcasts the final episode of 'Liberty, Literacy and Legacy', titled 'Words win Elections, but Votes Govern' with guest Emily Green, 17:30 long, and the show ends after an eight-week run that began Feb 22, 2026. The channel's streams tab holds exactly seven items and all seven are episodes of this show, so this is the last live broadcast on the channel. The episode signs off 'I'm Christina Boggs. This has been Liberty, Literacy, and Legacy. My advice tonight, don't follow the speech, follow the vote. We'll continue next week.'
Bonnie Wallace (Llano) gives $1,500 and $2,000 to Llano County Conservatives political fundraising committee on the same day. Her Texas contribution record in the TEC bulk export runs to 118 rows, 2002 to 2026 (2021: 6, 2022: 16, 2023: 26, 2024: 26, 2025: 26, 2026: 8), employer "retired" or "Self": $500 to Bo French (Mar 25, 2026), $250 to Rep. Wesley Virdell (Jun 30, 2026), $125 x2 to the Republican Party of Texas (Jun 11, 2026); earlier, seven rows to Brian Harrison, six to David Lowe, five to Michael Olcott.
Texas · Technology
Documented the rows, read directly from the export / supported that every "Wallace, Bonnie, Llano" row is the same person (75 of 118 carry Llano; 6 carry no city)
archived pageBook Riot, 'Utah Adds Two More Books to Banned List; 34 Now Outlawed in State Public Schools', published Apr 28, 2026 (archived Apr 29, 2026)
Publishing & vendors+2 · Technology / Vendors / Community ·
1 source
archived pageransomware.live victim listing, 'Follett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Software LLC', group Shinyhunters
28 records · 15 with receipts · 6 themes · 5 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
KUTV reported Utah had removed 34 books statewide, 33 of them (roughly 97%) first removed in Davis school district; identified the operator as 'civic education director for Utah Moms for America,' creator of the National Book Rating Index; quoted her: 'I haven't removed any books -- the committees have.' Separately, Let Utah Read's administrative director told KUTV: 'It's just one person who says, "No, I don't want my kids to read it." Therefore, no kids get to read it.'
archived pageransomware.live victim listing, 'Follett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Software LLC', group Shinyhunters
Adams Leadership political fundraising committee reports a $10,000 expenditure to "Utah Parents United", purpose "Donations", on its 2026 Primary report. The political fundraising committee is Senate President Stuart Adams's: its 2026 expenditures include $45,000 to "Committee to Elect Stuart Adams" (Jan 12, 2026). The Utah Parents United payment is its sixth-largest 2026 expenditure (after Election Hive $58,000, Utah Republican Party $48,603.73, the Adams committee, and two Irish Elk LLC payments) and the only Utah Parents United line in the political fundraising committee's 2021 to 2026 reports (99 to 130 rows a year).
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community
Documented the disclosure row and the political fundraising committee's own expenditure list, from the bulk export / supported that the payee is the Utah Parents United of this register (the string only)
archived pageransomware.live victim listing, 'Follett (the company behind the Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) school catalog software) Software LLC', group Shinyhunters
The Utah Education Network Governing Board adopts the eMedia Content Policy as a Board Action item (agenda 2.03 "Policy: eMedia Content"). eMedia is UEN's statewide open-educational-resources repository for Utah schools (lesson plans, learning modules, assignments, assessments) — NOT the ebook/database collection, which is Utah's Online School Library. The policy incorporates the sensitive-materials statute by reference — "Resources published in eMedia must comply with Utah law related to educational practices and materials, including but not limited to Sensitive Materials and Prohibited Submission ( 53G-10-103 , R277-628 )" — and creates a public challenge process: a member of the general public may file a Statement of Concern; the Utah Education Network convenes "a panel of licensed educators or other individuals deemed qualified by UETN" which recommends to "remove, reclassify, or retain" within 30 business days; appeal goes to the Utah Education Advisory Council, deciding within 60 days after its next quarterly meeting; materials stay available during review; one Statement of Concern per individual or organization at a time; "UETN retains final authority over all material selection decisions." A Collection Maintenance and Weeding section makes material "deemed by UETN to be inaccurate, outdated, low-quality, irrelevant, low-use, or identified as spam" subject to removal.
The Utah Education Network board adopted the eMedia Content Policy with NO discussion. On the meeting recording, Rich Nye — introduced as "the chair of our policy and nominations committee" — presents it as "just an update of the policy, the e-media content policy we discussed in our committee", says it "brings all of that compliance by reference to those lines of code, and particularly around the [sensitive] materials, and then identifies what maintenance and weeding also looks like", and states "We had a good discussion, reviewed, and created some modest modifications to it". The chair then asks "Any questions? Or discussion?" — nobody responds — and the item passes by motion, second and voice vote. Item 2.03 runs 00:19:14 to about 00:21:40 of a 1:40:45 meeting.
The policy the Utah Education Network board called "just an update" replaced a public-broadcasting editorial policy with a school-digital-library collection policy, and four protections in the old text have no counterpart in the new one. Gone: (a) the whole-work rule binding the reviewers, "Content is considered in its entirety, not solely on portions taken out of context"; (b) the other-parents clause, balancing a complainant's concerns "while also preserving that right for other parents/guardians"; (c) the revision guard, "revisions will not be undertaken when a formal request for reconsideration is occurring"; (d) the editorial-independence anchor to the Public Broadcasting Editorial Integrity Guidelines and Public Media Code of Integrity.
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community ·
1 source
archived pageWayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture of the Utah Education Network 'Content Selection Policy', Apr 29, 2025
At the May 8 2026 Utah State Board of Education Standards & Assessment Committee Vice Chair Joann Brinton proposes copying the Texas vendor-rating mandate, at [02:18:38] on the recording: Texas "requires that vendors who sell to school libraries actually evaluate all materials and issue a rating of sexually explicit or sexually relevant. And if it's challenged and found that they rated it incorrectly, they send it back and require them to relook at it or face being barred from selling to Texas libraries." Asks whether Utah should do "something like that instead of making more work on the librarians", framed as a legislative request the board could make "during the summer going into next year".
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Vendors / Community ·
Documented the words and the sequence / documented the speaker, from the meeting's own 3Play speaker-labeled transcript (upgraded from supported Sep 7, 2026)
1 source
videothe Utah State Board of Education Media, "2026-05-08 | Standards and Assessment Committee (Live) | USBE"
The Utah State Board of Education Standards and Assessment Committee, agenda item 1.6. Member Emily Green moved "that the Standards and Assessment Committee direct staff to bring back a timeline for conducting a comprehensive review and audit of public school library material selection and acquisition practices in Utah, including funding sources, procurement procedures, vendor and publisher relationships, librarian qualifications and training, collection development standards, distributor influence, and the role of professional organizations in shaping library policies and purchasing decisions." The motion passed unanimously. It was the 7th of 7 motions on that item, and it followed an amendment on the floor: Green first moved that staff conduct the review, and a member objected on feasibility grounds before it was narrowed to bringing back a timeline for conducting one. The Summary of Actions records no motion for the full Board: "MOTION FOR THE BOARD: No motion for the Board currently. This item will be moved to the June 5, 2026, Committee meeting."
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the motion text, the vote and the no-board-motion line, from the Summary of Actions
At the Utah State Board of Education Standards and Assessment Committee, Vice Chair Joann Brinton moved to remove the confidentiality assurance given to people who file book challenges. Introducing it at 02:15:09 she said she had emailed her proposed amendments to the committee: "I think I sent an email towards the beginning of the meeting with just some questions that I had and some possible suggestions for some amendments for some clarity. And so I sent it to everybody on the committee. And policy advisor Jennifer Wadsworth and Andrea." Her first motion was "to clarify with GRAMA and challenger privacies": because "under the Utah Code, formal appeals and complaints submitted to a public governing body are considered public records", the existing wording "confidential to the extent possible" "could risk misleading parents and creating a legal liability when a GRAMA request is filed". She moved to strike "shall be kept confidential to the extent possible" and insert that such documentation "shall be handled in accordance with the Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA), noting that formal challenge documentation may be subject to public records requests". She separately moved to strike "erroneous" in the three-unsuccessful-challenges provision and insert "challenges that result in a final determination to retain the material without restriction". Separately in the same exchange, member sarah reale - not Brinton - put a question to the assistant attorney general: "My other question is for AAG Doan, is there someone requesting to be keeping track of who's requesting the process that gets started on some materials because of the piece that says you can't if you have three unsuccessful --", and the sentence is cut off there.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community
Documented every quotation and the sequence, from the committee's own recording
She says on camera, twice in one video, that Florida state department staff asked her to compile challenged titles grouped by school and by county: 'I have been contacted from people from the state department regarding asking me if I would put these books together per school' and 'some people at the state department asked me to please group this according to the schools and according to the counties'
Florida · Community ·
Documented as her assertion / needs verification as a fact about FLDOE
1 source
videoCleanBooks-vb, 'DO what? 'All This Twisted Glory,' 'The Pact,' 'The Unhoneymooners,' 'Chain of Iron.''
31 records · 12 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
The same packet includes the Florida state objection form — "Specific Material Objection Template Incorporated in Rule 6A-7.0714, F.A.C.", effective Nov 2023 — on which the filer has inserted a red notice: "PDF VERSION WAS USED. PAGE NUMBERS MAY VARY." Question 2, "Did you examine this material in its entirety?", is answered Yes; question 3, which requires specific page numbers, is answered "SEE BELOW" and followed by an 8-page excerpt list carrying specific page citations
At the Utah State Board of Education Standards and Assessment Committee meeting of Jun 5, 2026 (video 02:04), the board's own burned-in captions name Vice Chair Joann Brinton raising the rating site from the dais: "I have just seen that ratedbooks.org is now free and open to the public. Is that a resource that our librarians and school districts can be made aware of so that they could more easily look at reviews and content in books?" Utah State Board of Education staff member Davina Sauthoff answers that "our previous AAG talked about rated books" and that she does not remember whether it was in a committee meeting or in an email thread, adding that the site "is not an industry standard website that is reviewing books based on the way that professional industry reviews titles" and that it may look at titles "through a different lens than what we would want a title to be reviewed at." Chair Jennie Earl then recalls the caution as having been about "an individual person versus an organization" and says that does not prohibit someone from using several sources. This is the same meeting at which Member Green moved the school library review timeline and its 60,000 dollar request.
Documented on the words, the sequence AND the speaker labels as of Sep 7, 2026. Upgraded from supported (strong): the meeting's 3Play live-captioner transcript names all three speakers on their own turns - 'Vice Chair Brinton: I saw that rated books.org is free to th -- ratedbooks.org is available to the public.' / 'Davina Sauthoff: The previous AAG talked about this. Potentially, this is not an industry standard website that reviews books the way professional industry reviews titles. They may look at a different lens than we want a title to be reviewed at. Does anyone remember this title with our AAG?' / 'Chair Earl: If I remember right it was that they might be using a variety of resources. I cannot remember the specifics but an individual person versus an organization. That doesn't prohibit someone from using several sources to review their content.' This is no longer an inference from burned-in captions; it is the captioner's own attribution, and it agrees with the burned-in reading exactly. Context THE labels ADD: the exchange sits inside the 30-school-day timeline debate - immediately before it, 'Vice Chair Brinton: Does 30 school days make it enough because that adds in weekends.' So on May 8, 2026 Brinton offered the Texas vendor-rating mandate as a swap for the 30-day pause (BBA-0729), and on Jun 5, 2026, still arguing the same timeline question, she raised ratedbooks.org. Twice, during A timeline debate, SHE offered AN external screening mechanism. supported that this is a pattern rather than two coincidences; documented that both exchanges happened and that she is the speaker in both. Route for the transcript: [[usbe_3play_speaker_labeled_transcripts]].
The Utah State Board of Education Standards and Assessment Committee. Member Green's only motion of the day on this subject was procedural and financial, not a directive to staff: she "moved that the Committee ask Board leadership to add the Comprehensive School Library Monitoring Timeline to the July Law and Licensing Committee meeting requesting $60,000 from the discretionary funds, and to move the timeline forward to the full board meeting in August." THE motion passed 4-1, with member sarah reale opposed. The committee's separate motion FOR THE board that day concerned the model policy, not the monitoring timeline, so the review still carried no full-board motion out of committee.
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the motion text and the 4-1 vote with Reale opposed, from the Summary of Actions
Citizens Defending Freedom's "Explicit Titles in Schools" spreadsheet adds five titles (four Augusten Burroughs memoirs and Warriors: Into the Wild) whose linked report PDFs, in CDF's own Drive folder, are Google-Docs renders headed "Generated by RatedBooks.org" and still watermarked "Pending Final Report"; on Jul 14, 2026 and Sep 2, 2026 it adds 24 more RatedBooks-headed reports. Of the 166 titles CDF added from Apr 9, 2026 on, 162 are absent from RatedBooks' public index sheet; 133 were already in the National Book Rating Index's catalog on Sep 2, 2026 and the National Book Rating Index listed the September additions by Sep 14, 2026. All 29 reports checked carry the RatedBooks header and none names BookLooks, CDF or the National Book Rating Index.
Florida · Technology
Documented the 29 files, their headers and watermarks, and the joins, computed Sep 14, 2026 / supported that CDF is a distributor of RatedBooks' output rather than an author
On camera she tells Santa Rosa County that jstor 'has a secondary collection that is filtered and appropriate for high school students' which the district 'has not registered for'. Jstor's own page sells that collection on price AND breadth, not filtering: 'the vast majority of jstor's archival journals and primary sources, all at a fraction of the cost'. filter, age-appropriate and 'appropriate for' all return 0 across the captured page with the control passing
Florida+1 · Libraries / Vendors ·
Documented the vendor wording / needs verification whether the collections differ in content
1 source
video'jstor Access--A digital platform advertised through a local High School', CleanBooks-vb, uploaded Jun 17, 2026
39 records · 24 with receipts · 6 themes · 3 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Utah Moms for America streamed a 3,982-second interview titled "What's the Deal with Book Banners -With Brooke Stevens", hosted by Carrie Bartholomew, who introduces herself as "otherwise known as Cara Marcel" on a show called "Be Not Afraid" and introduces her guest as "my friend, Brooke Stevens. Brooke is Laverna in the library. She is one of the main people who is creating a rated book system." Two shorter uploads share the title, 333 seconds and 3 seconds.
On camera the operator describes a paid, priced-by-library-size integration of RatedBooks ratings into a library's own catalog system: "we can integrate our ratings with your library system. So when patrons are using it they can see the rating in there and it's ongoing as we get more reports as you get more books those will be rated because it has an API that it uses to keep it live and active." She declines to give a price - "I can't give you a price because it's how big your library is". Alongside it she pitches a free bulk service: "get automated inventory reviews we can review the whole collection in your library in under 10 minutes you send us an excel spreadsheet of the books we just need the title the author the isbn... we don't need to know what school it's from... We will match it against our 34,000 reviewed reports". A barcode scanner is described as "coming soon".
Same interview: the operator states that Texas sends her pre-purchase lists for screening - "I've been running um against the NBRI the 34,000 rated books that we have aggregated again um texas has been sending us lists before they purchase it so we can give them a rating on it and say, hey, this might not be one you want to get" - and describes the same capability as available generally, "we could do pre-purchase lists too".
Same interview: the operator describes an author-political-speech filter she added to the National Book Rating Index at a librarian's request. She cross-referenced signatories of a pro-Palestinian publishing pledge against the index - "so there were thousands of authors so i cross referenced that list of authors who had signed this ban against israel and then marked him in the book" - and states the field is labeled "flagged for local review, state anti BDS legislation", justified because the signature "goes against 38 state laws".
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community ·
Documented as her assertion
1 source
videoUtah Moms for America, 'What's the Deal with Book Banners - With Brooke Stevens' (Jul 1, 2026)
Current Utah law is broader than the 2020 bill, and schools are not exempt. The live Utah Code read in a browser Aug 29, 2026 shows 78B-6-2102 and 2103 effective 5/6/2026 (Chapter 255, 2026 General Session) and 78B-6-2105 effective 7/1/2026 (Chapter 291, 2026). TWO limiters present IN THE 2020 enrolled bill ARE gone from THE current text: the word predominately in 2103(1) and 2105(1), and the clause with THE intent TO earn revenue OR profit in 2105(1). Current 2105(1) reads simply 'A person who distributes or otherwise provides obscene animal abuse material or pornographic material to consumers'. Section 2102's exemptions cover only pure-conduit intermediaries - interactive computer services, telecoms, ISPs, hosting companies, game-software distributors - and only where distribution is incidental to transmitting, routing, connecting or storing data, so A school district IS NOT exempt. The obscenity definition moved from 76-10-1203 to 76-5c-101. New provisions also split the money and create a public count: 2105(21) gives the Office for Victims of Crime 50 percent of any penalty, so a noticing party keeps $250 of each $500; 2105(22) requires the attorney general to send that office a copy of every notice it did not reject as meritless; and 2105(24)(b) requires that office to report TO THE legislature IN odd-numbered years the number of notices received, the number of court orders, and the total deposited
Documented every current provision, read from the live code this turn / needs verification when the predominately and profit limiters were removed / needs verification the current CPI-adjusted penalty ceiling
At the Brookings County, school district Commission meeting, five residents asked commissioners to pause county funding of Brookings Public Library; Carla Dieter named the National Book Rating Index from the podium and described its parental-permission mechanism — an NBRI-provided form restricting access to flagged books, parents selecting a level from zero to five their children may check out, each book's designation labeled by the system
South Dakota+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Facebook group 'LaVerna in the Library' (public, ~4,000 members) found to share a contact email with RatedBooks.org's own Utah Articles of Incorporation, identifying a national 'Mary in the Library' franchise brand with Utah and South Dakota chapters; a MassResistance field director's post sharing MassResistance material was found as the top post inside the same group, and a separate post concerned a campaign to pull county funding from a South Dakota public library
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community ·
1 source
Archive copyFacebook group 353057099906284, "LaVerna in the Library - Utah's Mary in the Library", and RatedBooks.org's Utah Articles of Incorporation contact address
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Archive copyUtah public-records law request to Washington County School District regarding its informal removal process, drafted Jul 14, 2026, rewritten Aug 4, 2026
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The National Book Rating Index site's removal-type filter exposes sortable facets with counts, dozens of which are labeled "Pen America Reports:" — e.g. "Pen America Reports: Challenged in Escambia County Public Schools (FL) (1534)", "Pen America Reports: Removed/Restricted in North East Independent School District (TX) (866)", "Pen America Reports: Removed/Restricted in Department of Defense Educational Activity (Nation) (486)"
The Utah State Board of Education Law and Licensing Committee, item 7.12 Sensitive Materials Timeline Update, first reading. The committee set a time certain to accommodate Member Green, who joined online while traveling and presented the item herself. Member Hall then "moved that the Committee adopt the 2026 Timeline Policy, Draft 1, on first reading and appropriate $60,000 from Board discretionary funds for implementation and forward to the Board for approval on second and final reading." The motion passed unanimously with Member Longacre absent. The instrument adopted is the Comprehensive School Library Monitoring Timeline, a 26-week plan in four phases concluding early Dec 2026: Phase 1 Fiscal Analysis (8 weeks, 12 districts and 3 charters), Phase 2 Supply Chain and Procurement (7 weeks, auditing Master Service Agreements with major national distributors and vendor-provided shelf-ready processing), Phase 3 Regulatory Compliance and Training (7 weeks, all 41 districts and charters), Phase 4 Synthesis and Reporting (4 weeks). Stated staff burden: 680 Utah State Board of Education hours and 789 LEA hours.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community
Documented the motion, the vote, Green's presentation and every timeline figure, from the Summary of Actions, the committee recording and the timeline document itself
The Law and Licensing Committee's own Summary of Actions for Jul 14, 2026 misstates the Jun 5 action it was appropriating $60,000 to fund, in two material ways. Under item 7.12 it recites: "During the June 5, 2026, Committee Meeting, Member Green made the following motion: Member Green moved that the Standards and Assessment Committee direct staff to bring back a timeline for conducting a comprehensive review and audit of public school library material selection and acquisition practices in Utah... The motion passed unanimously." first, that IS THE MAY 18 motion text, NOT THE june 5 motion: the Jun 5 motion asked Board leadership to schedule the item and request the funds. Second, THE june 5 motion DID NOT pass unanimously: it passed 4-1 with Member Reale opposed. The document therefore reproduces an earlier motion under a later date and records a contested vote as unanimous, erasing the dissent on that motion. (corrected Sep 7, 2026: an earlier version of this row called it 'the only dissent in the committee chain', which is wrong - the Jun 5 summary alone records TWO 4-1 votes with Reale opposed, and May 18 records Green opposed and Green abstaining. It is the dissent on this motion, not the only one anywhere.) This Summary of Actions was published in the Aug 6, 2026 board packet, the materials before the full Board for second and final reading.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community
Documented both documents and the discrepancy between them, read directly / documented the Jun 5 vote independently confirmed on the committee's own recording / needs verification how the error arose
Archive copyInternal pilot test result (n=3->4) on whether Friedman routinely challenges unread titles
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Jul 15–19, 2026
30 records · 20 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Archive copyUtah public-records law request drafted Jul 17, 2026 for complete unedited Davis school district district-operator correspondence, never sent
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Cross-read finding: the stated standard and the applied standard diverge across four videos on the same channel. Public-facing (nDfEsyGbuwA, audio-verified): "It has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It has nothing to do with race. It's all about being sexually explicit for minors." Workflow and tutorial videos (ifJ6IsHIfUw district-addressed, v_EO1Mk3ntI parent-addressed, _KnKD-obpxo tutorial): LGBTQ is a sort column, a named scale, and a stated rating criterion; CRT is a sort column
Archive copyCentral York school district Follett Destiny (the Destiny catalog software, from the school-library company Follett) catalog (centralyork.follettdestiny.com)
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
— the catalog-access distinction, stated so it cannot be blurred later. Guest catalog search (Central York and the 72 enumerated instances): public by design, exposes bibliographic data, no patron records, not unauthorised. Librarian-level access (Davis school district, Feb 20, 2026): granted in person, to a system holding student addresses, phone numbers and checkout history; a ferpa attorney called it a likely violation regardless of intent
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community · Research note
1 source
Archive copyAnalyst note
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Archive copyUtah public-records law request to Utah's Division of Arts & Museums for the executed Hope of Utah grant agreement and reconciliation of the $150K/$125K/$135K appropriation figures - drafted, NOT sent
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Recalculation of the saved Jul 2026 BookLooks comparison confirms identities for 32 of 36 statewide-list entries: 30 have sexual-content tags without the selected LGBTQ-related tags, and two have those tags. Two author-name variants remain unresolved and two entries have no matched report in this records. For the audit's 22 entries, 14 identities are confirmed: 12 sexual-content-only and two with the selected LGBTQ-related tags; four author conflicts and one volume match remain unresolved, and three have no matched report in the July records.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors ·
Documented recorded labels and reproducible counts under stated identity rules; needs verification unresolved matches and population-level conclusions
1 source
Archive copyOur Jul 20, 2026 cross-tabulation of Utah's statewide removal list against BookLooks "Summary of Concerns" tags
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
Uspto verified negative: no trademark application containing "booklooks" or "ratedbooks" has ever been filed (tmsearch.uspto.gov wordmark search, 0 live and 0 dead each) and no assignment records exist for assignor "booklooks", assignee "booklooks", assignee "ratedbooks", or assignor "maikisch" (Assignment Center); test searches for a known name worked on both systems ("google": 291 and 602 hits)
Utah+1 · Technology / Vendors ·
1 source
Archive copyUspto tess/Assignment Center search results, Jul 20, 2026
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
documentDavis School District board exhibit 'Jun 30, 2026 Sensitive Materials Appeals', attachment to the Jul 21, 2026 Regular Meeting consent agenda (a batch vote with no discussion)
As captured on Jul 26, 2026, the World Library Association's team page co-lists the operators of three separate rating and challenge tools as members of one roster: Brooke Stephens (RatedBooks.org, LaVerna in the Library, National Book Rating Index), Jerry Chapman (Citizens for Decency Inc., BookLens.org) and Bruce Friedman (We The People 2 / Inappropriate Books). Also listed: Vicki Baggett (Escambia FL), Bonnie Wallace (Llano County TX library advisory board), Debbie Leimbach, and Diane Smith, who promotes using Follett Destiny (the Destiny catalog software, from the school-library company Follett) Discover to search school catalogs. The WLA About page states its purpose includes guidance on auditing libraries and running for library boards of trustees. It was launched in 2023 by Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries as an alternative to the American Library Association, and lists him as executive director
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Davis School District's own book-challenge files are built on vendor-generated documents. Of 61 documents in the district's challenge set, 41 carry the footer "Generated by RatedBooks.org", on 256 pages in total and on no document's every page (224 pages found by plain-text search; 32 more in four documents whose text layer is glyph-shifted, decoded and confirmed by page render). 47 of the 61 file names call these "plausibility" documents; the word appears in the text of only one. Their structure is uniform: a book summary, a "Summary of Concerns" list, verbatim excerpted passages under headings reading "Page Content <N>" keyed to printed page numbers, and profanity word counts (for example "Hell 21, Jesus 7, Christ 4"). In the Lonesome Dove document, five of seven pages (pages 3-7) are vendor-generated; pages 1-2 are Microsoft Forms pages. The remaining 20 documents are mostly a different type: the district's own web form headed "REQUEST REVIEW OF SENSITIVE INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS", plus the separately produced set for the statewide-banned titles
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors
Documented the footer count and the document structure / needs verification who filed the challenges
The Utah State Board of Education Member Emily Green's questionnaire "School Library Materials Acquisition and Procurement Review", Draft 1, carries its own date line "Date: August 4, 2026", runs 23 pages, and is published at pages 1232-1254 of the Board's public packet for the Aug 6 2026 meeting. In its own words it "translates the review's objectives into the industry's own working terms: approval plans, standing orders, opening-day collections, shelf-ready processing, cooperative contracts, curated selection lists"; item B-13 asks whether a district's ordering platforms can "filter or block titles by: the USBE statewide removal list"
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community ·
2 sources
documentGreen addendum, "School Library Materials Acquisition and Procurement Review", Draft 1, dated Aug 4 2026, 23 pages
The Aug 6, 2026 draft minutes record adoption of the amended library-review plan and $60,000, with staff flexibility and additional documents included for refinement and committee discussion, not as a final form. The 3Play transcript reports a final vote of 10 yes, one abstention and two no; the draft minutes list 11 yes, one abstention, two no and one absent. The discrepancy remains unresolved.
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community ·
Documented draft-minute text; supported automatic transcription tally; needs verification reconciliation of final vote counts
3 sources
clipGreen reads the addendum's purpose: the review in "the industry's own working terms" (150s, video)
viewing this review through the industry lens. Not through like the educational realm. ... translates the review's objectives into the industry's own working terms. Approval plans, standing orders, opening day collections, shelf ready processing, cooperative contracts, curated selection lists and so forth.
Utah State Board of Education board recording -CctnMQ7ZxU, video 6:56:50-6:59:20, cut Aug 7, 2026
clipThe final vote: "Ten in favor, one abstention, Chair Hymas, and two no votes" (140s, video)
That motion passes. Ten in favor, one abstention, Chair Hymas, and two no votes being Member Reale and Member Lear.
Utah State Board of Education board recording -CctnMQ7ZxU, video 7:59:15-8:01:35, cut Aug 7, 2026
clipAfter the vote: the chair on directing staff, and on what the consent calendar has become (215s, video)
I'll say what you're not going to say, Davina. ... the vote that just passed, 10 to 5, 10 of us say, "Yes, forget this. We're doing this. This is where we're going." ... You don't belong to Molly anymore. You belong to us, all 15 of us.
Utah State Board of Education board recording -CctnMQ7ZxU. Edited excerpt, about four minutes omitted at 1:48. Ends at the chair handing off to Vice Chair Bollinger, which the 3Play transcript places at 9:02:38; the "10 to 5" it opens on is therefore the addendum vote at 8:54:12, which is an inference from position, not a stated reference.
The Utah State Board of Education Standards and Assessment Committee hears the first state-level appeal of an LEA book removal, over Fight Club in the Davis School District. The board memo states that under R277-123-10 "the scope of the State Board's review is narrowly focused" to whether the LEA violated the operational and procedural requirements of its own adopted sensitive materials appeal policy, so the remedy available is returning the matter to the LEA with corrective orders, not reinstating the book
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community ·
1 source
documentUtah State Board of Education board memo: under R277-123-10 "the scope of the State Board's review is narrowly focused"
archived pageEscambia County (FL) Public Schools, "Reconsideration of Educational Media" department page, Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture Aug 18, 2026
Follett Destiny (the Destiny catalog software, from the school-library company Follett) is the tool named on camera in at least four of the 15 videos ('in the Destiny program', 'the Destiny report was so limited', 'the Destiny summary is insufficient as it normally is', 'Destiny does not reveal to the parents anything about what is truly in the book'). She uses the district opac to enumerate which schools hold a title, then reads the holdings list aloud school by school
Florida+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community ·
Documented that she says it / needs verification on Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) permissions
1 source
video'Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman', CleanBooks-vb, uploaded Aug 12, 2026
The Utah Education Network's "Statement of Concern" form — the challenge form created by the May 5, 2026 eMedia Content Policy — is a public Asana form linked from the policy page itself. Scored against a 7-part model challenge-form standard: it meets read-the-whole-work ("Have you read or listened to the item in its entirety?", required) and one-title-per-form ("Title of Content", singular); it is partial on own-words (two required free-text fields but no bar on pasting) and on no-third-party-attachments (NO file-upload input exists at all, though a URL can still be typed into free text); it differs on standing (it requires "a primary residence within the state of Utah" but does NOT require parent/guardian status — the school field is not required); and it fails verifiable citations (no page or locator field anywhere).
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
The Utah Education Network Statement of Concern form is broader IN scope than the policy that created it. The form reads "your concern about an item found in Utah's Online School Library or UEN's eMedia", while the eMedia Content Policy's own Scope section reads "This policy applies to the maintenance of materials within UETN's eMedia library at https://emedia.uen.org." Utah's Online School Library is the ebook and database collection (the ebsco route) and is not named in the policy's scope, yet the challenge form reaches it.
The Utah Education Network policy the board "retired" on May 5, 2026 as a "content selection policy" shares a URL with the policy that replaced it, and that page has been overwritten IN place. uetn.org/about/governance/policies/content-policy.php is headed "eMedia Content Selection Policy" but its body is the same text as the eMedia Content Policy adopted May 5, 2026, differing only in the page heading and site chrome; both carry "Adopted: May 5, 2026". So the pre-retirement text is not available on the live web.
The policy-flag mechanism the operator described on Jul 1, 2026 is present in the published rating-index widget, and it is broader than she described. The index is an iframe whose source carries a filter checkbox id="filterPotentialViolations" labeled "Potential policy violation", a per-book "policyFlags" array (8 references) whose entries carry "policy_name" and "policy_url", link text rendered verbatim as "Flagged for Local Review", an expandable table whose two column headers are "Report Link" and "Policy / Statute", and the tooltip "Content may violate local law or policy. See links for details." The note above the table reads "These entries indicate potential policy or statute violations flagged for review."
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
The National Book Rating Index "Library Transparency Package" product page is unchanged between Jul 26, 2026 and Aug 17, 2026: rendered text is byte-identical at 3,522 characters. It advertises "$100.00 Price" against a required "Number of Schools" selector whose options run from "Up to 20 schools" to "Up to 1750 schools", and states "You must already have access to your library inventory list to purchase this." This is the priced-by-size structure the operator described on camera as "I can't give you a price because it's how big your library is."
The National Book Rating Index publishes a five-tier subscription price list at nationalbookratingindex.com/pricing-plans/list. Individual Index Access is $10 every month or $50 every year, both described as "available to adults". Institutional Index Access is banded by size served: Small $399/year ("Public libraries = <25k pop. served. Public schools = <1k students"), mid-sized $999/year ("25-150k pop. served... 1k-5k students"), large $2,999/year ("150k+ pop. served... 5k+ students"). All three institutional tiers carry the same line: "Ask about getting a white-labeled portal on your website." The institutional pitch reads "Reduce staff research time, support policy-compliant decisions and provide diversity in book evaluation."
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Confirmed IN THE live product: the National Book Rating Index carries a "Filter by Potential Violations" select with exactly TWO options, "State Anti-BDS Legislation (308)" and "Utah Sensitive Materials Law (11)". Applying the anti-BDS filter returns "Showing 1-50 of 308 books" against a full index of "Showing 1-50 of 37964 books". The designation panel states the purpose verbatim: "Designations are provided to help libraries stay in compliance with federal and state law and local policies." The first title listed under the filter is a reference work about censorship, "120 Banned Books" by Karolides, Bald and Sova.
The National Book Rating Index "Library Transparency Package" is priced at $100 PER school, read by selecting tiers in the live store and reading the displayed price: 2 schools $200.00, "Up to 900 schools" $90,000.00, "Up to 1250 schools" $125,000.00, "Up to 1750 schools" $175,000.00. ONE tier breaks THE ladder: "Up to 1000 schools" displays $10,000.00, one tenth of the $100,000 the pattern implies, and it is bracketed on both sides by tiers that follow the rule. Buying the 1000-school tier therefore costs $80,000 less than the 900-school tier immediately below it.
The two links the National Book Rating Index offers a librarian behind its anti-BDS flag are NOT a statute. Expanding a flagged title renders a "Report Link" and a "Policy / Statute" column. The Report Link resolves to a public Google Doc, 6,673 lines, which is an open letter dated Oct 28, 2024 and its signatory list, opening "We, as writers, publishers, literary festival workers, and other book workers" and pledging "we will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians." The Policy / Statute link resolves to jewishvirtuallibrary.org/anti-bds-legislation, titled "Anti-Semitism: State Anti-BDS Legislation", a reference page on an advocacy site whose own opening sentence reads "To date, 38 states have adopted laws, executive orders, or resolutions designed to discourage boycotts against Israel."
The National Book Rating Index index is served by an unauthenticated public json API, and its full filter dataset was captured from it. The index iframe hardcodes its backend as bwentzel6.wixsite.com/website-9 in a function whose own comment reads "Hardcode the Wix site URL since the iframe origin is different", and exposes two post endpoints, /_functions/getFilters and /_functions/searchBooks. getFilters returns 868 removal/restriction categories with per-category title counts summing to 25,150, exactly 2 policy categories ("State Anti-BDS Legislation" 308 and "Utah Sensitive Materials Law" 11), and its own throttle counter of 200 requests per hour. Of the 868 categories, 816 (94.0 percent, 21,851 of the 25,150 count-sum) are labeled "Pen America Reports:". The 4 categories carrying no state tag are "Removed from Prison" (258), "Utah Statewide Removal" (36), "South Carolina Statewide Removal" (21) and "Pen America Reports: South Carolina Statewide Removal" (20). Iowa carries the most categories of any state at 232, ahead of Florida at 170 and Texas at 79; Utah has 37 summing to 611.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology ·
1 source
documentthe National Book Rating Index getFilters json endpoint on bwentzel6.wixsite.com/website-9 (unauthenticated post)
The National Book Rating Index removal taxonomy did not change over the 34 days from Jul 14, 2026 to Aug 17, 2026. All 868 category names returned by the API on Aug 17, 2026 are present verbatim in the Jul 14, 2026 site scrape: zero categories added, zero retired. 864 of the 868 counts are identical. Four moved, netting +12 titles on a 25,150 base (+0.05 percent): Burke County Public Schools (NC) 34 to 44, Removed from Escambia County (FL) 370 to 374, Removed from Santa Rosa County (FL) 51 to 52, and Removed from Clay County (FL) 690 to 687. Both policy counts, 308 and 11, are unchanged across Jul 14, 2026, Jul 18, 2026 and Aug 17, 2026.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology ·
1 source
documentthe National Book Rating Index getFilters json endpoint
A second, previously unfetched copy of the National Book Rating Index runs at parentalchoiceindex.weebly.com, on a Weebly whose navigation still reads the unconfigured template default "MY SITE". It carries the National Book Rating Index wordmark, the 0-5 badge key, a live search-and-filter interface and the "Review Sources and Ratings" and "Removal Documents" modals. It shares eleven element ids with the published index widget captured the same day, including the table id "pciTable" and the error div "pciError" - Parental Choice Index names still present inside the published National Book Rating Index. The published copy additionally carries seven ids the Weebly copy lacks, all of them the policy-flag machinery (filterPolicies, filterPotentialViolations and its icon, and camelCased filterCrt/filterLgbtq with icon siblings, where the Weebly uses upper-case filterCRT/filterLGBTQ). The Weebly copy contains no backend wiring at all: zero matches for "_functions/", "getApiBaseUrl" and "bwentzel6.wixsite.com" against a live comparison copy. It had never been archived: the Wayback Machine (an online library that saves copies of web pages) held zero saved copies of it, checked four ways against a working ratedbooks.org comparison, and our request on Aug 17, 2026 created its first snapshot.
The rating-conversion methodology published on parentalchoiceindex.weebly.com differs materially from the same methodology in the National Book Rating Index's own Mar 2026 sheet. The Weebly page describes "a clear 0-8, color-coded scale" and assigns numbers to Challenged (6), Reviewed (7) and Removed (8); the Mar 13, 2026 sheet describes "a 0-5 scale" and the published index shows those three as unnumbered badges. The Weebly lists eight sources against the sheet's nine: Romance.io appears on the Weebly and not in the sheet, while Kiss the Book and "Banned in Prisons" ("Prison Rating") appear in the sheet and not on the Weebly. Three conversions disagree outright: Rated Reads "High" maps to 3 in the sheet and to 4 on the Weebly; Christian Parent Reviews "Prayerfully Consider" maps to 1 in the sheet and to 2 on the Weebly; and Compass Book Rating uses bands 0-1/2-3/4-7/8-10 topping out at 3 in the sheet versus 0/1-2/3-4/5-6/7-8/9-10 reaching 5 on the Weebly. The Weebly page also carries an internal contradiction in its own key: the Rated Reads row reads "High - 4 - Youth Restricted" while the key on the same page assigns 3 to Youth Restricted and 4 to Adults Only.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community ·
1 source
archived pageparentalchoiceindex.weebly.com "Rating System Explanation" page, saved on review
The parentalchoiceindex.weebly.com copy of the index carries content that predates Apr 17, 2026, dated by a signal independent of its stylesheet timestamp. Its rating-methodology page lists Romance.io as a source with a full conversion table, and Romance.io was silently removed from ratedbooks.org/indexproducts and /nbri between Jan 16, 2026 and Apr 17, 2026, a window already established by the Wayback Machine (an online library that saves copies of web pages)’s saved copies. The National Book Rating Index's own Mar 13, 2026 rating-conversions sheet, which falls inside that removal window, lists nine sources and Romance.io is not among them. The Weebly's stylesheet is requested as /files/main_style.css?1766078517, an epoch decoding to 2025-12-18T17:21:57Z, and the Dec 8, 2025 National Book Rating Index introduction video likewise shows Romance.io as a live per-title rating source. Three signals agree that the Weebly site came first.
38 records · 23 with receipts · 6 themes · 1 unverified
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Zero rating-vendor citations anywhere in Escambia's 478 text-bearing challenge documents: ratedbooks, booklooks, the National Book Rating Index, BookLens, OnShelf, Screen It First, PEN America, Moms for Liberty, Florida Citizens Alliance, Library Exposed all return 0 files. Test searches on the same set: Escambia 151, reconsideration 221, ' the ' 472. Hosts actually cited inside the documents are mostly defense-side: all4ed.org 20, reading.org 10, ncte.org 10, search-institute.org 10
Florida+2 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors
Documented scoped to the 478 / needs verification for the collection as a whole
The storylabs.online /scholar page is read for the first time. Scholar'S LAB is a priced homeschool mentoring product in three tiers - Package A "Building Blocks" $100 a year for portal and curriculum access, Package B "Map & Outcomes" $500 adding two private mentoring consultations and a customised learning plan, Package C "Project-Based Learning" $1,000 adding private mentoring for a student project. It carries its own contact details, scholarlabdesign@gmail.com and a 530 (Northern California) phone number, and its logo tagline is "CUSTOMIZED LEARNING DESIGN". The page navigation still lists both heart Sex Ed editions, CA and UT, alongside Spanish, Latin, 1776 Unites and Amplify USA
The only privacy document the storylabs.online storefront links is a Privacy Policy revised May 25, 2020, unchanged since (PDF Title "Microsoft Word - STORYLABS Privacy Policy (2).docx", Creator Word, CreationDate Jun 1, 2020, 9 pages). It contains NO certification, pledge or signatory claim and names no student-privacy framework: Coppa 0, ferpa 0, sdpc 0, "Student Privacy Pledge" 0, gdpr 0, "children" 0, California 0. It places the consent duty on the teacher, not the platform - the Educator User "agree[s] that you will obtain and maintain all required consents from Student Users or their parents or legal guardians (when such Student Users are under the age of 13...)"
Utah+2 · Libraries / Vendors / Community ·
Documented the document / needs verification any conclusion about the certification claim
1 source
documentStorylabs Privacy Policy PDF, 9 pp, 'Revised: May 25, 2020', linked from https://www.storylabs.online/scholar
All 17 single-page Baggett challenge forms filed as exhibits to the PEN America complaint were rendered at 200-300 dpi and read BY EYE. Every objection phrase the complaint and the Eleventh Circuit attribute to her is verified against her own handwriting, including 'Opines prejudice based on race' (Wilma Rudolph), 'encourages pedophilia' (The God of Small Things), 'LGBTQ agenda using penguins' (And Tango Makes Three), 'race-baiting; anti-whiteness' (New Kid) and 'LGBTQ introduction; not age appropriate' (When Aidan Became a Brother)
Florida+1 · Libraries / Policy ·
1 source
documentPEN American Center Inc. v. Escambia County School Board, N.D. Fla. 3:23-cv-10385-TKW-ZCB, Amended Complaint with Index of Exhibits, Doc. 27 filed Jul 24, 2023, 220 pp.
documentSanta Rosa County School District Citizen's Request Form for Re-Evaluation of Instructional Materials, form SR900717 rvsd 10/2020, as published on srcchallengedbooks.com
A Santa Rosa County FL challenge register published by Vicki Baggett on srcchallengedbooks.com, with its 205 source documents captured: 211 rows / 210 distinct titles, submissions May 23, 2023 to Aug 6, 2026 (2023:71, 2024:63, 2025:35, 2026:29, 13 undated), 1,392 pages, zero scans - all born-digital. Of 169 forms with a parseable filer field, 106 (62.7%) name Baggett, nearly always jointly with one of a few repeat co-filers (53, 25 and 7 forms); the next independent filers account for 20 and 6
Florida · Libraries ·
1 source
documentSanta Rosa County challenge register, the Google Sheet published on srcchallengedbooks.com
On at least 217 challenge filings across TWO Florida districts the complainant discloses in writing that her page citations come from a PDF, ebook or Internet Archive copy: 'PDF version WAS used. Page numbers MAY vary' (133 documents), 'page numbers MAY vary' (217), one in red type reading 'from ebook, pages MAY vary', and 6 naming the Internet Archive. Escambia 89 of 751 documents, Santa Rosa 128 of 205
Florida+1 · Libraries / Technology
Documented the disclosure / needs verification that any citation is wrong
archived pageWayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) capture of utahparentsunited.org/laverna.html made on review, Aug 19, 2026 22:09:15 UTC
Verified Aug 20, 2026: the timestamp this receipt named did not exist; Wayback (an online library that saves copies of web pages) was serving a different capture and returning 200. Re-pointed to the capture actually served.
TWO independent parallel captures of the same Santa Rosa register exist, made three minutes apart by different sessions, in directories differing by one hyphen: srcchallengedbooks-santa-rosa-register-Aug 18, 2026 (169 forms read, 106 naming Baggett) and srcchallengedbooks-santarosa-register-Aug 18, 2026 (203 read, 113 naming Baggett). Cross-checked: the 131 documents read by both agree on the filer, with all 26 apparent disagreements being invisible-character and punctuation differences. Union = 235 legible forms, Baggett named on 133 = 56.6%
Florida+1 · Libraries / Community ·
Documented the reconciliation
1 source
documentSanta Rosa County challenge register, the Google Sheet published on srcchallengedbooks.com
Follett (the company behind the Destiny school catalog software)'s national school-catalog picker exposes an unauthenticated json API, and each school's record carries a guestAccess flag. Chain verified end to end with no login and no special software: destinydiscover.com -> /aasp/service/aasp/pick/v1/locations (76 state and province entries) -> /searchDistricts -> /search -> /sites/<id>/details. Of 111 library-type sites sampled across 34 state and province codes, 106 (95.5%) return guestAccess true
Publishing & vendors+1 · Libraries / Technology ·
Documented the route and the field / supported that guest access renders a usable search
1 source
documentFollett Destiny (the Destiny catalog software, from the school-library company Follett (the company behind the Destiny school catalog software)) Discover public school-catalog picker, site-detail json for Cottonwood High School (primaryKey 389339)
documentFollett Destiny (the Destiny catalog software, from the school-library company Follett (the company behind the Destiny school catalog software)) public catalog-picker API, searchDistricts endpoint
Escambia County (FL) School Board election: all three incumbents who voted for the Jun 17, 2025 removal directive won re-election outright in the nonpartisan primary, so none carried to a November runoff. Kevin Adams (D1) 7,054 / 60.99% def. Erin Toler 4,511 / 39.01%; Paul H. Fetsko (D2) 5,189 / 65.87% def. Gerald Washington 2,689 / 34.13%; David Williams (D3) 4,991 / 59.25% def. Isaac L. Williams 3,432 / 40.75%. ⚠️ unofficial election-night returns, not certified
Florida · Libraries
Documented as unofficial complete count; needs verification as certified
Verified tax classification of the three entities from the IRS Business Master File, read by the file's own header row: Rated Books and Empowered Parents are both subsection 03 with deductibility code 1, contributions are deductible, and both appear in Pub 78 as PC. Utah Parents United is subsection 04, a 501(c)(4), with deductibility code 2, contributions are NOT deductible, and it is absent from Pub 78. None of the three appears on the IRS Auto-Revocation List
The IRS Business Master File lists brooke wentzel stephens as the in-care-of name for Utah Parents United (federal tax ID 86-2759097) and brooke W stephens for rated books (federal tax ID 39-2728966). The IRS defines the field as "the person (officer, director, etc.) to whose attention any correspondence should be directed". Utah Parents United names a different principal officer on its own Form 990-N in every year it has filed: Nicole Mason (tax year 2021, tax year 2022), Corine Johnson (tax year 2023, tax year 2025), and no name at all for tax year 2024
Documented the form field / needs verification any coordination claim
1 source
documentSanta Rosa County School District Citizen's Request Form for Re-Evaluation of Instructional Materials, initiated by Mariya Calkins, for Twisted (Laurie Halse Anderson)
Empowered Parents (UT 9699080-0140, federal tax ID 81-1431524) and Utah Parents United (UT 12213207-0140, federal tax ID 86-2759097) share four people and one address. Johnson is a director of Empowered Parents entering Aug 19, 2021 and signing its May 11, 2026 annual report, while being Utah Parents United's president in filed governance and Utah Parents United's 990-N principal officer for tax year 2023 and tax year 2025. Dickson signs the same 2026 Empowered Parents report, is Empowered Parents' own 990-N principal officer for FY2025, and is in Utah Parents United's filed governance. Mason is an Empowered Parents director from Dec 1, 2022 and Utah Parents United's 990-N principal officer for tax year 2021 and tax year 2022. Stephens was an Empowered Parents director and then President in 2022 and is Utah Parents United's IRS in-care-of name. Both organizations give 640 North Main Street Suite 226, North Salt Lake
Utah · Community ·
Documented each document / supported (strong) that the matching names are the same individuals
1 source
Archive copyNo single public document. This connection is drawn from four earlier saved records, not one document.
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
At an official press conference carried only on the Lieutenant Governor's own site, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick threatens to enforce SB 13 through school accountability ratings and district budgets, with Bonnie Wallace presented on stage: "If you're a C, you'll be a D" (17:54), "We also can look at potential budget issues" (18:03), and "So we're coming for the books" (18:46), having opened by claiming "about 80% of the school districts have not done anything" about SB 13 (2:56)
Texas+2 · Libraries / Policy / Community ·
1 source
Archive copyLt. Gov. Dan Patrick, official press conference, at 00:17:54 / 00:18:03 / 00:18:46
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
If you're a C, you'll be a D. ... We also can look at potential budget issues. ... So we're coming for the books.
ltgov.texas.gov homepage embed, unlisted on a publicly-empty channel, 322 views when saved; a full copy is archived in the research files
From the Lieutenant Governor's podium at the same press conference, Bonnie Wallace directs the public to recoveramerica.com and takebacktheclassroom.com for book lists and challenge forms — "You can also download my dirty book list, 2,198 books" (19:43), "The other website is TakeBackTheClassroom.com" (20:06), after Patrick's handoff "you can go to RecoverAmerica.com" (19:27) — and ratedbooks.org is never named on the tape
Texas+1 · Libraries / Technology ·
1 source
Archive copyBonnie Wallace from the Lieutenant Governor's podium, at 00:19:27 / 00:19:43 / 00:20:06
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
...you can go to RecoverAmerica.com ... You can also download my dirty book list, 2,198 books. ... The other website is TakeBackTheClassroom.com.
ltgov.texas.gov homepage embed, unlisted on a publicly-empty channel; a full copy is archived in the research files
Escambia County (FL) reported "None Removed or Discontinued" to FLDOE for school year 2023-2024, and its own reconsiderations register confirms zero decisions of any kind landed in that year. But 155 titles challenged on or before Jun 30, 2023 were still undecided after Jun 30, 2024, and 136 of those carry the register column "Restricted Access Y/N During Review Process" = Y. Because s. 1006.28(2)(a)2 requires objected material to be removed within 5 school days and "remain unavailable to students" pending resolution, the year reported as None is a year in which 136 titles were off the shelf. The statute’s reporting scheme is binary, each material removed or discontinued versus each material not removed or discontinued and the rationale, with no restricted category, so a year-long pendency has nowhere to be reported.
Florida+1 · Libraries / Policy ·
2 sources
archived pageFLDOE, 2023-2024 School District Reporting Pursuant to s. 1006.28(2), F.S.
Florida Department of Education, archived Nov 10, 2024; 1,062,525 bytes, byte-identical to our saved copy
Archive copyEscambia County reconsiderations register (the pendency counts)
Copy held in the research archive. No public link yet.
held in the research archive; not publishable as-is. The counts are re-derived from the register, never quoted — three parses gave three answers before the date formats were handled.
FLDOE’s s. 1006.28(2) report changed shape between school years 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, and the change dropped the only field that showed a pending backlog. The 2022-2023 report gives every district a paired count, Objections and Removals, on 71 district lines. The 2023-2024 report contains the string Objections zero times and Removals zero times, and a district instead either lists removed titles or reads None Removed or Discontinued, which appears 49 times. Escambia’s two lines read Objections 215 Removals 9 for 2022-2023, then None Removed or Discontinued for 2023-2024.. The 2024-2025 report keeps the new shape: "Objections:" appears zero times and "None Removed or Discontinued" 57 times, so the change persisted rather than being a single-year anomaly
Florida+1 · Libraries / Community ·
3 sources
archived pageFLDOE, 2023-2024 School District Reporting Pursuant to s. 1006.28(2), F.S.
Controlled three-year pass over every Florida district in FLDOE's s. 1006.28(2) reports establishes that Escambia's pattern does NOT generalise. Across 73 districts, the shape titles-then-None-then-titles occurs exactly once, and it is Escambia (9 removals, then None, then 22 titles). The dominant pattern is the boring one: 41 of 73 districts reported zero removals in 2022-2023 and None in both later years, so for a clear majority None means nothing happened. Statewide: 1,218 objections and 386 removals in 2022-2023; 762 titles listed and 49 None-districts in 2023-2024; 445 titles and 57 None-districts in 2024-2025.
Governance of the daniels fund, the Colorado private foundation that made the $20,000 grant to Empowered Parents, read from the foundation's own people page and crosswalked to its tax year 2024 Form 990-PF. President and CEO Hanna Skandera Grady, compensation $969,680. Board chairman John Suthers, a shareholder at Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck and former mayor of Colorado Springs, $76,350. Eleven further directors at three hours a week drawing $6,350 to $71,186, among them former U.S. Senator Hank Brown, former New Mexico governor Susana Martinez, and R. James Nicholson, senior counsel at Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck. Total officer, director and trustee compensation for the year: $3,130,926.
Neither ratedbooks.org (109 pages in the site's own Wix page manifest) nor nationalbookratingindex.com (40 pages) publishes any terms of service, privacy policy, or license page; the string 'terms' occurs zero times in either site's served html, and ratedbooks.org/terms-and-conditions has returned a Wix 404 since at least Aug 1, 2026. S&S Apps does publish a Terms of Use and privacy policy for its Storylabs curriculum products. So the operator lawyers the curriculum side and leaves the book-rating products, the ones districts consume, with no published license or liability terms
Oconee County Public Library (SC) recommends two movement-built tools by name on its own parent-resources page, numbered and hyperlinked: '1. Rated Books' (ratedbooks.org), described as 'a searchable database with ratings based on content, such as explicit material', and '2. Pavement Education Project', linked to its recommended-reading list. The page frames both as resources that 'provide valuable insights into books your child may encounter in public libraries.' A second South Carolina public library system carrying RatedBooks into its own patron-facing materials, after York County named it in policy (BBA-0429, BBA-0455)
Multi-state+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented the page and its links / needs verification any coordination
The Pavement Education Project (NC) names a Texas district's policy as its model on its Inappropriate Books page: 'While none is perfect, the policy and model used in Keller Independent School District, Texas is a fine example', followed by 'View kisd documents here'. The same page states 'The PEP Team partnered with Rated Books to show a growing group of books that have questionable content and graphics'
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented as PEP's own page / needs verification as to Keller school district's involvement
A cross-district book-rating and removal tracker linked from a state parents' organization's own site is publicly readable with no authentication; across three visible tabs it holds 810 unique titles rated 0 to 5 -- most of them LOW-rated -- with district outcome columns, 21 direct links to rating-report assets, and a maintainer contact address
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Vendors / Community
Documented the sheet, its columns and counts / documented as the sheet's claim every district removal or retention
Tested against a second, independently-obtained Davis challenge record, the cross-district tracker is substantially accurate: of 49 rows naming that district, 40 match, 32 of the matches agree on the final decision, and 7 of the 8 disagreements are explained by a later appeal the tracker did not capture -- it records the committee stage where the other record records the final stage
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented the comparison / needs verification which record is right on the two conflicts
The Davis catalog method extended to Jordan School District, where the rating tracker is sharper because it names schools rather than only districts across its 15 JSD rows - 'JSD Bingham High', 'JSD W. Jord High', 'JSD Copper Hill High', 'JSD W. Jord Middle'. A three-title spot-check at Bingham High School, unauthenticated guest access, positive control 'hatchet' returning 4 results status IN: A Court of Frost and Starlight, which the tracker marks removed at Bingham, returns NO results and is also on the Utah State Board of Education statewide list naming Jordan, so tracker, state list and shelf all agree; Last Night at the Telegraph Club, which the tracker marks retained at Bingham and which is NOT on the statewide list, returns NO results; and crank by Ellen Hopkins, also marked retained at Bingham and also not on the statewide list, is absent from the five records the word 'crank' returns
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
Documented the three catalog results and the control / supported the Crank absence, since two of five records were never inspected / needs verification that either conflict refutes the tracker
The Utah State Board of Education's statewide-list district column undercounts removing districts. Washington County School District's own published removal log records People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins removed 7/22, while the Utah State Board of Education's statewide removal list records the three-district threshold for that title as met Apr 17, 2026 naming Davis, Jordan and Tooele - exactly three districts, Washington absent, forty-five months after Washington removed it. The removing_districts column is therefore not a census of the districts that removed a title. Four further Washington titles are missing from their the Utah State Board of Education rows (A Clash of Kings, A Stolen Life, Bag of Bones, Water for Elephants) but each shares the calendar month of its threshold date and the log records month only, so their order cannot be established and they are NOT citable as instances. The same reconciliation run against Davis School District's own tracker found zero discrepancies in either direction across 36 titles, so the undercount is Washington-specific rather than a general property of the column
Utah · Libraries
Documented the undercount on People Kill People, on four documents / supported that the four same-month rows are also undercounts / needs verification why the column undercounts
The activist workbook's hidden 'Removed' tab scores 45 of 52 against Davis's own record, and its seven misses all run the same direction. The tab lists 67 titles as removed. Reconciled against Davis School District's own 213-row challenge tracker: 45 confirmed removed, 7 contradicted by the district's own final decision, 15 with no Davis row at all. The seven the district says it kept are Beautiful, Crank, Go Ask Alice, Sold, The Freedom Writer's Diary, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Handmaid's Tale: A Graphic Novel. This settles Go Ask Alice three ways: Davis's tracker says Retain, Davis's live Destiny (the catalog software school libraries use) catalog showed it present at two of three high schools searched on Aug 29, 2026, and only the activist sheet says removed
The Google Sheets workbook behind Utah Parents United's 'LaVerna in the Library' page carries thirteen hidden worksheets behind its three visible tabs, readable only via the xlsx export (/htmlview lists visible tabs only). The hidden layer is an operational toolkit: a 905-row reproduction of Rep. Matt Krause's Texas list (opens with its canonical first title); a 405-row Davis-targeted worklist with columns 'LGBTQ', 'CRT', 'Laverna link' and 'Mary USA Link'; a 32-row sheet locating titles by named Davis school; a per-title checkbox matrix scoring quoted passages against statutory 'bright line (Utah’s automatic-removal rule)' categories; a challenge-outcome ledger counting days without results ('over 272 days'); a rated Nampa, Idaho removal list; a 'Good Books' whitelist; and an elementary-target list. A full-workbook date scan (string dates + Excel serials, known-date control passing 9x) finds NO cell dated after Feb 18, 2025, three weeks before the BookLooks shutdown notice and the operator's same-day continuation post
Utah+3 · Libraries / Policy / Technology / Community
Documented the tabs, their visibility states, structures and counts / supported (strong) that the Krause tab reproduces the Krause list (first title and 4 known members match; exact diff not run) / needs verification each tab's full contents and authorship
Davis's own challenge tracker sorts its challenge waves by which document they came from, and the document it names for 2026 is not the ratings workbook. The tracker carries a column headed 'BS coordinated challenge?' whose five values are perfectly disjoint in time: 24 rows marked 'BS Challenge' run Nov 16, 2021 to Dec 13, 2024 (20 of them in 2022), 9 marked 'Likely BS' run Aug 30, 2025 to Oct 29, 2025, and all 46 marked 'BS Spreadsheet' fall in 2026, between Feb 23, 2026 and Jul 28, 2026. Matching each category's titles against the two candidate source documents separates them cleanly. The 46 rows of the 2026 wave are 74 percent present in the public challengers' worklist (34 of 46) and only 7 percent present in the ratings workbook (3 of 46), while the 24 rows of the 2022 wave are the reverse: zero in the worklist, 21 of 24 in the ratings workbook. Not one of the worklist's 34 title matches falls in any other category, a 34 to 0 to 0 to 0 to 0 split. Tightened on dates against the Jul 18, 2026 capture of the worklist: of its 80 rows, 25 appear in the tracker, all 25 carry the 'BS Spreadsheet' label, and their challenge dates agree with the district record to within a day, 17 same-day and 5 next-day. One correction belongs on this card: the tracker states its own basis in a tab that was not opened before this row was written. Its statistics notes say that Brooke Stephens keeps a public spreadsheet tracking which books she has challenged in the district, and that the spreadsheet dates back to Feb 2026. The separation of the waves is therefore the tracker's own account rather than a discovery here. What this row adds is which captured document the label points at, an identification the tracker never makes by name or link
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented as computed, both documents and the tracker read this turn / documented that the tracker names Brooke Stephens in full and states its own basis, corrected same day after its Stats tab was opened / needs verification who compiled the tracker, though its own notes place the compiler outside the district / needs verification who wrote the worklist / needs verification where the 2026 title pool came from
The hidden worksheet's claims about what Davis did are accurate, and its only two conflicts are both already explained. The 405-row hidden worksheet named "DSD challenges", which sits behind the three public tabs of the ratings workbook and which the Aug 28, 2026 comparison never saw, asserts a Davis outcome on 26 of its rows. Eighteen of those match a row in the district challenge record; 16 agree with that record's final decision and 2 disagree. Both disagreements are the ones already documented: Thirteen Reasons Why, where the worksheet says retained and the record's final reads removed by the state under the Oct 23, 2025 statewide threshold, a different stage rather than a conflict; and Monday's Not Coming, where the worksheet says removed and the public record says retained, which is the known split between Davis's internal removed-books email of Jun 13, 2023 and its public register. Across the whole worksheet 97 of 405 titles match a district row, the rest being titles the district has no challenge on file for
Utah · Libraries
Documented every count, computed this turn from both sealed workbooks / needs verification whether Davis ever removed the 8 unmatched titles
Davis's saved workflow workbook contains 38 recorded reported-to-state steps across 18 dates, May 22, 2025–Jun 25, 2026. Against the Aug 21 statewide snapshot, two are confirmed title-and-author matches: A Clash of Kings and Different Seasons. Bag of Bones is an unresolved spelling-variant join because the workflow says Stepen King and the Utah State Board of Education says Stephen King; 35 reported rows have no matched entry in that snapshot. Three other confirmed statewide title-and-author matches have no reporting date recorded in this workbook.
Utah+2 · Libraries / Policy / Technology
Documented workbook fields and reproducible bounded counts; needs verification spelling-variant join, receipt, finality and public absence beyond the snapshot
RatedBooks.org publishes a Google My Maps network covering 2,269 distinct schools and libraries, AND ONE MAP OF THE movement itself. Twenty-eight distinct public Google My Maps were harvested from 89 captured ratedbooks.org pages and all 28 exported as KML. They hold 7,178 placemarks excluding legend rows, which dedupe to 2,269 distinct schools or libraries, 40 book placemarks and 58 organization placemarks. Each school placemark's description carries a link to that school's own library catalog. The largest maps are michigan, not Utah: 'Elementary books Mary in the Library Michigan' 1,757 placemarks, 'Books Rated 4/5 Mary in the Library Michigan' 1,473, 'Books Rated 3/5' 1,375, 'Books Rated 5/5' 767, plus multi-state maps titled 'Books Rated 4/5 (Not for Minors) GA, KY' at 601 and 'Books Rated 5/5 (Aberrant Content) CA, CO, GA, KY, OK, TX, PA' at 552. Utah's district maps are far smaller - Davis 33, Granite 25, Jordan 21 across four rating-tier maps, Washington 19, Weber 16, Alpine 14, Canyons 13, Nebo 12. ONE MAP IS titled 'Inappropriate Books - Organizations Revealing Inappropriate Library Books' AND lists 58 named organizations keyed TO states, including mary IN THE library IN nine states plus A national entry, No Left Turn in Education in four, Truth in Education in four, Moms for Liberty in four, Mass Resistance in three, BookLooks.org LLC in two, and five Utah entries - Utah Parents United, Laverna in the Library, Kiss the Book, Nebo School District Parents, and a Granite School District entry
Context+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the 28 maps, every count after deduplication, and the organization list as the map's own text / needs verification any relationship among the listed organizations
Live catalog checks at three district high schools settle the tracker's two disputed removals against it: one title is on the shelf at the school checked, and the other, absent at one high school, is held at both of the other two -- so the district's public retention is supported and the tracker's district-wide removal claim is not
Utah+2 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors
Documented the catalog results, controls passing / needs verification why the one site lacks it
Who operates the Google account that owns the rating estate's district-specific working files cannot be resolved from outside: Google exposes editor identity only through version history, which requires edit access, and a reader gets the owner address and a modified timestamp and nothing more
A Google Form titled 'Customized RATEDbooks Homepage' uses the LaVerna workbook as its book-selection input ('use this list to select the books you want included in your display', linking the sheet three times) and directs buyers to storylabs.online/youth-advisory-ratings-stickers (two references) - the volunteer character sheet published on Utah Parents United's page feeding a paid StoryLabs product
Utah+2 · Technology / Vendors / Community
Documented the form's text, its three sheet links and two storylabs links, as captured / needs verification the form's author, creation date and how widely it circulated
Documented the report exists and was filed / documented as a controlled null it is not publicly posted
Aug 2026
2 records · 3 themes
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
Correction to an earlier row: the organizations map had already been captured and filed, and the 28-map set is incomplete. The map titled 'Inappropriate Books - Organizations Revealing Inappropriate Library Books' was captured on Jul 14, 2026 in a file whose name records its placemark count. Diffed against the Aug 29, 2026 pull it is identical on every field: same title, 66 placemarks, 58 named organizations, same affiliation disclaimer, zero organizations added and zero removed across six weeks. Separately, two further ratedbooks.org district maps captured Aug 10, 2026 are absent from the 28 because no crawled page links them - salt lake city district at 42 placemarks and sevier school district at 6. Salt Lake City at 42 is larger than every utah district MAP IN THE 28, exceeding Davis at 33 and Granite at 25
Context+2 · Libraries / Technology / Community
Documented the prior capture, its file date, the field-by-field diff, and both omitted maps with their placemark counts
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
The National Book Rating Index index's per-title endpoint was called for the first time and swept in full, closing the gap the getFilters capture left open. 380 pages of 100 against bwentzel6.wixsite.com/website-9/_functions/searchBooks returned 37,991 rows and 37,987 unique ids, unauthenticated, with a bogus function name returning 404 as the control. Each row carries 25 fields and the shipping index widget references only 19. Of the six the widget never touches, exactly one carries data: isbns is populated on 34,766 of 37,987 records (91.5 percent), 378,930 strings and 363,330 distinct, median 3 per title. Check digits validate on 123,862 of 124,542 ISBN-10s (99.5 percent) and 254,021 of 254,123 ISBN-13s (99.96 percent). affiliate_link, hide_book and note_from_mary are empty on every one of the 37,987; additional_information is populated on 3 and mitigating_factors on 13. Separately, is_lgbtq is set on 2,562 of 37,987 records, 6.7 percent of this index.
Utah+3 · Libraries / Technology / Vendors / Community
The full 15-member Utah State Board of Education roster was scanned against every caption and transcript file held for the six advocacy channels in our records, 520 files, to enumerate which sitting board members appear on them. Four of the fifteen are found: Christina Boggess (District 8) as host of her own show, Emily Green (District 14) as guest on five of its episodes, Cole Kelley (District 12) on Utah Moms for America, and Jennie Earl (District 1) at a 2021 Utah Parents United press conference. The other eleven are not found on these channels.
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the four found / supported the eleven not found, scoped to these six channels
Every short published to @cb4ed between Apr 10, 2026 and May 9, 2026 was captured with captions, sixty items covering the whole window from four days before the last episode to the channel's final post, and each was matched against the flattened text of every long-form item the channel makes accessible, twenty-three in all: the nine 'Liberty, Literacy and Legacy' videos, the ten other videos in the videos tab, and the four unlisted videos in the CB4UT playlist. Fifty-seven of the sixty are clips of episodes that had already aired. Three are not: 6g9g7yk22qc (Apr 22, 2026, 13.6 percent coverage), 5z--YnO2AhA (Apr 28, 2026, 11.2 percent) and P-LsUgE2Njk (Apr 29, 2026, 7.3 percent). The channel was therefore still publishing from recorded material it had never released as long-form, eleven days and more after the show ended.
Utah · Policy
Documented that the three match no published episode / supported (strong) that unaired footage exists
Protect Salado Kids, a library-advocacy site for Salado, Texas, lists RatedBooks as an ally. Its Allies page links https://www.ratedbooks.org/ and https://www.ratedbooks.org/background and carries a descriptive blurb the page says is a 'gently-edited' version of the ally's own About text. Nineteen other advocacy domains appear alongside it, four already in this records: safelibraries.blogspot.com, courageisahabit.org, cplaction.com and advocatesprotectingchildren.org. The page also syndicates SafeLibraries and pitt headlines in a 'News From Allies' sidebar and retweets @moms4liberty, @protect_txchild and @julie_gebhards.
Texas+1 · Libraries / Technology
Documented the listing / needs verification anything beyond it
The saved reliability review screened five committee meetings, reports testable comparisons at four, and marks the Aug 7 item untestable because no chair tally is available. It reports at least 13 comparisons without a disagreement among the tested items. That bounded result does not validate every own-meeting vote summary. The Jul 14 retelling of Jun 5 remains contradicted by June's summary.
The saved page-check input contains 19 reports and 644 extracted citation records. Four report/audit author matches are unresolved and the Assassination Classroom volume match is unresolved; the remaining 14 confirmed audit identities contain 468 citation records. The existing results for six confirmed report/scan pairs contain 104 exact page matches among 105 located citations. This is a recount of saved results, not a new verification against book pages.
Utah+1 · Libraries / Technology
Documented saved input/result values and reproducible subset counts; supported retained page-check verdicts; needs verification five unresolved audit/report joins
Joseph Kerry, Utah State Board of Education District 2 (parts of Weber County, Ogden and Eden; elected 2022, seated Jan 2, 2023), resigns from the board effective Sep 14, 2026 and drops his re-election bid, announced on Facebook Sep 11, 2026, saying he is moving to another part of the state to care for his mother; Utah State Board of Education's District 2 page reads "currently vacant" on Sep 15, 2026. Kerry is the Chair of Jamie Renda's Path Forward Utah on its tax year 2024 and tax year 2025 990-EZs and its Vice President on tax year 2023
Utah+1 · Libraries / Community
Documented the resignation, effective date and stated reason as reported (Salt Lake Tribune Sep 14, 2026, json-ld dated; Ballotpedia "left office on September 14, 2026"; the Utah State Board of Education's own page) / supported (strong) that the board member and the PFU officer are one person: exact name, both of Ogden (the Utah State Board of Education profile Jan 3, 2024 "Joseph Kerry / Ogden"; PFU files from Ogden 84401), and Ballotpedia's bio says the member "founded Bible Rescue", the Ogden nonprofit whose 990-N principal officer is the same name already tied to PFU; no document states the link
Documented the Utah State Board of Education statewide list, last updated Sep 28, 2026, captured Oct 7, 2026
Oct 6–10, 2026
5 records · 3 themes
The timeline runs left to right. Scroll sideways, or hold Shift and scroll, to see the rest of this chapter. Keyboard: ←→ move along a lane, ↑↓ change lane, HomeEnd jump to the ends, Enter opens the record.
May 2022: the label and the board seat (25s, video)
“…All Boys Aren't Blue. And I read that and I'm like, what? This isn't a kid's book [the channel's auto-captions garble this phrase; the two passes do not agree on it], what? And I was horrified. And I like posted it, you know, because I'm on the board of Utah Parents United. And so I posted that. I'm like, yeah, that shouldn't be happening.”
Green reads the addendum's purpose: the review in "the industry's own working terms" (150s, video)
viewing this review through the industry lens. Not through like the educational realm. ... translates the review's objectives into the industry's own working terms. Approval plans, standing orders, opening day collections, shelf ready processing, cooperative contracts, curated selection lists and so forth.
The final vote: "Ten in favor, one abstention, Chair Hymas, and two no votes" (140s, video)
That motion passes. Ten in favor, one abstention, Chair Hymas, and two no votes being Member Reale and Member Lear.
After the vote: the chair on directing staff, and on what the consent calendar has become (215s, video)
I'll say what you're not going to say, Davina. ... the vote that just passed, 10 to 5, 10 of us say, "Yes, forget this. We're doing this. This is where we're going." ... You don't belong to Molly anymore. You belong to us, all 15 of us.
