Turning the Page: Alberta’s New School Library Standards
On July 10, 2025, Alberta’s Ministry of Education and Childcare enacted Ministerial Order 30/2025, a sweeping directive establishing province-wide standards for the selection, availability, and access of school library materials. This Order, binding on all school authorities, comes in response to the results of the School Library Standards Engagement Survey—particularly those deemed sexually explicit or age-inappropriate—within K–12 libraries across the province.
The Ministerial Order is both a policy statement and a regulatory framework. It mandates the development and enforcement of content selection procedures, parental notification systems, and cataloguing transparency measures. Taken together, these measures represent a significant shift in the relationship among school libraries, families, and provincial oversight.
Definitions That Matter
The Order outlines key definitions to execute the Standards. Key definitions to be aware of include:
· Depiction: Means a written passage, illustration, photographic or digital image, video or audio file.
· Explicit Sexual Content: Means content containing a detailed and clear depiction of a sexual act, but does not include non-sexual content, non-explicit sexual content, or any depiction of any nature contained in religious texts or scriptures.
· Non-explicit Sexual Content: Means content containing a depiction of a sexual act that is not detailed or clear but does not include non-sexual content or any depiction of any nature contained in religious texts or scriptures.
· Non-sexual Content: Means content that is not sexual in nature and includes but is not limited to depictions of bodies, body parts, or physical contact related to medical conditions, examinations, or treatment, related to biological functions, depiction in an informative, not narrative, manner, kissing or handholding, or indirect references to sexual acts.
Core Requirements of the Ministerial Order
At its core, the Order lays out a multi-tiered standard for school boards and education authorities. Key elements include:
Selection and Evaluation Criteria: All materials must be assessed for their educational relevance, developmental appropriateness, and alignment with curriculum objectives. Evaluation must include consideration of language, themes, and depictions of sexuality or violence. Notably, the Order mandates that:
Bans all materials containing explicit sexual content
No child or student below grade 10 has access to materials containing non-explicit sexual content
School authorities may permit students in grade or above to access materials that contain non-explicit sexual content if such content is developmentally appropriate
Schools review their collections of materials continuously to ensure compliance
Schools establish and maintain a publicly available listing of all materials
A staff member must supervise the access of all materials to ensure appropriate access
In the case where, during the school day, a student may have access to materials outside of the school library, a staff member must supervise such access to ensure that students do not access materials that they would not otherwise have access to in the school library
Parental Rights and Opt-Out Mechanisms: Schools must notify parents when materials with sexual content are added to the library. Parents have the right to limit their child’s access to such content.
Transparent Cataloguing: School authorities are required to maintain accessible, categorized records of all library holdings. Books flagged for sexual or sensitive content must be identified with standardized age-appropriateness markers.
Inclusive Selection Policies and/or Procedures: School authorities are required to have publicly available policies and/or procedures relating to the selection, availability, and access of school library materials that comply with the standards laid out in the Order no later than January 1, 2026. These processes must include a mechanism through which students, school employees, parents, the school council, or community members with a direct connection to the school can request that the school authority review, change access to, reconsider or remove specific school library materials.
The Order also allows the Minister to issue guidelines and directives as necessary to ensure compliance and consistency across jurisdictions. School authorities will be required to report annually on their adherence to these standards.
Implementation Roadmap
The Department of Education and Childcare has indicated that implementation will be phased in throughout the 2025–2026 academic year. School authorities will receive detailed selection guidelines in the fall of 2025, alongside templates for cataloging, age rating, and parental notification.
Authorities are expected to submit annual compliance reports beginning in 2026, which may be used to assess system-wide adherence. The Minister retains the authority to conduct reviews or issue further directives where necessary.
Public Engagement: Nearly 80,000 Respondents
Ministerial Order 30/2025 was informed by an extraordinary level of public engagement. In May and June 2025, the Government of Alberta conducted a province-wide online survey to solicit feedback from parents, educators, and community members. The response was overwhelming: over 196,000 Albertans began the study, and 77,395 completed responses were deemed valid.
Though 61% of respondents said they have never been concerned about a book in a school library being inappropriate for a specific age group due to sexually explicit content, the survey results revealed clear trends:
42% of respondents stated that students should never have access to sexually explicit content in school libraries.
94% agreed that elementary school students (under age 12) should not access such content.
A majority emphasized the importance of parental oversight, with 62% supporting a parent-driven complaint process.
Respondents indicated the highest levels of trust in teachers, librarians, and parents to make decisions about age-appropriateness, while expressing lower trust in government or political decision-makers.
The Political Landscape
The release of Ministerial Order 30/2025 reflects the current Alberta government’s broader emphasis on parental rights, transparency in education, and safeguards against ideological exposure in schools.
In announcing the policy, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides stated that the Order “strikes the right balance between giving students access to quality materials while respecting the role of parents and the maturity level of children.” The Department has positioned the Order as a protective measure—not a restriction on knowledge—but rather, an assurance that library content will reflect community standards and age-appropriate pedagogy.
Alberta’s framework is unique in its attempt to codify detailed implementation procedures through a Ministerial Order, rather than legislation, thereby allowing for more flexible and responsive administrative control, while simultaneously raising concerns about transparency.
While several parent advocacy organizations have come out in support of this Order, and some educators have expressed appreciation for the increased clarity, several criticisms of the Order have also been voiced.
Some literary advocacy groups have criticized the Order, labelling it a de facto book ban and warning that it sets a dangerous precedent. They argue that assigning bureaucratic criteria to literary content—especially those related to identity, gender, and sexuality—could lead to the exclusion of important narratives from marginalized voices.
Moreover, these groups caution that Alberta may be following a pattern seen in parts of the United States, where similar policies have led to the mass removal of books and a narrowing of student exposure to literature.
Finally, some educators and librarians have expressed concern about the administrative burden this Order introduces. Concerns about how school staff, already stretched thin, will be expected to implement the standards.
Conclusion: Balancing Access and Accountability
Ministerial Order 30/2025 is both a response to public pressure and a proactive attempt to create uniformity in an area long characterized by local discretion. While it aims to protect children and empower families, it also enters into sensitive territory, where issues of censorship, academic freedom, and social inclusion intersect.
Its long-term success will depend on careful implementation, ongoing consultation with educators and communities, and a willingness to refine the framework as needed. For now, the policy reflects Alberta’s evolving view on what it means to provide not just access to education, but controlled, transparent, and accountable access to the content students encounter along the way.
