COLUMBIA, S.C. (WSPA) – The State Department of Education is implementing a new regulation that determines what materials are allowed in South Carolina schools. 

The new regulation allows the Department of Education to have the final say in local disputes over what books are appropriate in school libraries, book clubs, and classrooms. They said they introduced the regulation to provide clarity statewide on the selection process for instructional materials in schools. The department was also dealing with an increasing amount of challenges regarding whether materials were age-appropriate.

As a result, officials created a process they call, “clear, transparent, and uniform.”

The regulation prevents material that includes descriptions or visual depictions of sexual conduct, “as defined in  South Carolina law.”

But that concerns educators like Patrick Kelly.

“My concern is that section of state law broadly defines sexual conduct as a simple description of sexual intercourse,” said Patrick Kelly, director of government affairs for the Palmetto Teachers Association.

“So if you have a book that simply describes that act, then it’s potentially age-inappropriate and it doesn’t have to be a graphic description or explicit description, simply describing. So the bible describes sexual conduct, the works of Shakespeare describe sexual conduct.”

However, the Department of Education said that by narrowing the definition of sexual conduct, local boards may avoid possible confusion.

Kelly thinks the vague language does not stop there.

“It’s really vague in how it defines age-appropriate,” said Kelly. “It’s also not nuanced. It treats age appropriateness the same for a five-year-old as it does for an eighteen-year-old. To be frank, as an educator, what is age-appropriate in a kindergarten classroom is not the same as a twelfth-grade classroom, that’s why we have standards that differ across gray levels.”

Parents who have a complaint about a book can appeal a local board’s action to the state board, under the new regulation. But they are also limited to how many complaints they can make.

According to the Department of Education, the regulation is not book banning. Officials said it’s dictating what books the government should buy. Educators like Kelly would rather the decision stay local.

“So often these kinds of issues can be resolved through a conversation between a parent and an educator and in doing so, that will allow a parent to exercise their right to be involved in their child’s education,” said Kelly. “But if you elevate this immediately to the state board level then you are potentially getting involved in determining what’s available to other people’s children.”

State lawmakers had 120 days to approve or reject that regulation. Before the session ends in May, lawmakers usually adopt language in an agreement that would allow regulations that didn’t hit that 120-day mark to expire while the legislature is out of session.

But this year, lawmakers failed to act so the regulation took effect.