Florida had the second-highest number of school book bans in the country during the 2025-26 school year, behind Texas, according to a report the free-expression group PEN America released Monday during Banned Books Week.
PEN America counted 11,982 bans nationwide affecting 7,370 titles, the most in a single year since it began tracking in 2021, the Associated Press reported. The group recorded more than 8,100 in Texas and more than 3,200 in Florida, and said Texas moved ahead largely because of a 2025 law on school library materials, according to Texas Politics.
How bans are counted
PEN America counts any content-based action that removes a book or restricts students' access to it, including temporary removals while a title is reviewed, USA Today reported. The American Library Association, by contrast, counts only permanent removals.
"Book bans impede the freedom to read, cutting students' access to a diversity of views, voices, perspectives, and literature they deserve to encounter," the report says. Kasey Meehan of PEN America told USA Today that "districts are stuck feeling like they have to remove full swaths of books to be in compliance" with state laws.
Supporters of the restrictions describe them differently. Last year, the civil rights office of the U.S. Education Department labeled book bans a "hoax" and said library collections should be a "question of parental and community judgment, not civil rights," according to USA Today. Florida's 2023 law, HB 1069, lets parents object to classroom and library materials they consider "pornographic" or that "depict sexual conduct."
Seminole County
The Florida Department of Education's annual list, which reflects final removal decisions reported by districts, shows only 10 districts removed titles in 2025-26, WKMG reported in September. Clay County led with 261, followed by Escambia with 150 and Nassau with 102. Orange County reported one. Seminole County Public Schools was not on that year's list.
Across 2023 through 2026, the state list shows six titles removed by Seminole schools: "Let's Talk About It," "Lucky," "Exit Here," "Push," "Triangles" and "Tricks." WKMG noted that the removals take books off school shelves but do not bar students from bringing their own copies to campus.
