The Brief

The presentation was unassuming, just a handful of picture books arrayed on the side of a bookcase — the ABCs of a Pride parade, biographies of the gay World War II codebreaker Alan Turing and 50 LGBTQ+ people who made history, the sex education manual “It’s Perfectly Normal,” a retelling of the Stonewall riot and “My Shadow Is Pink,” in which a young boy explores his gender identity.

But when Fresno County Supervisor Steve Brandau heard a complaint from a constituent that Clovis librarians had put together a graphic Pride Month display for the children’s section, he was concerned enough to check it out. It wasn’t the type of material that he thought should be available alongside books about skunks and pirates.

“I don’t like a kid going in there and seeing ‘I can choose to be a boy or girl,’” Brandau said. “It didn’t seem age-appropriate, especially without the parent being involved.”

After flipping through the books, Brandau said he left the library in June 2023 “horrified” by images he believed were too sexually explicit and topics he felt were too mature for young readers. He began reaching out to local officials elsewhere — in states such as South Carolina, Kentucky and Texas, where library book controversies have become commonplace — to learn what they were doing.

Last November, Brandau led Fresno County in creating one of California’s first citizen review committees for library books, which could soon decide whether to move material with “sexual references” and “gender-identity content” to a restricted area where it could only be checked out with a parent’s permission.

Fresno County Supervisor Steve Brandau stands outside his office in the Fresno County Hall of Records on Aug. 1, 2024

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters/CatchLight Local

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The committee, which has not yet been selected, is already a lightning rod for fears about parents’ rights, censorship, the politicization of libraries and LGBTQ people being pushed out of public life again. Supporters say they are concerned about sexual content, not LGBTQ themes, and they do not want to ban books from the library entirely.

Tracy Bohren, a queer mother of two from Clovis who helped rally local LGBTQ residents against the committee, said adults who object to books about gay and transgender people are applying their own biases to sexualize material meant to help children understand the world. She said it’s important to have library books about marginalized groups available to LGBTQ kids who don’t come from supportive homes and need the message that they are loved.

“Somehow in the ‘we need to protect kids’ platform that they have stated, trans kids, LGBTQ kids, have not been considered part of that population that they need to protect,” Bohren said.

Now the book battle has become another front in the intensifying clashes between more conservative pockets of California and the state’s liberal government over values and local control. A bill on track to pass the Legislature before the session ends on Aug. 31 would effectively outlaw book review committees and other policies that limit access to materials at public libraries — potentially shutting down Fresno County’s efforts before they ever get off the ground.

“It appears to me that they believe that children are best educated and raised as wards of the state,” Brandau said. “We have age limits for movies. We have age limits for alcohol. And it’s not unreasonable to have age limits on sexually graphic material.”

Book bans surging nationwide

Though disagreements over what constitutes suitable reading material for young people are nothing new, public libraries have been thrust into a pitched culture war over the past few years as conservative activist groups across the country organized to demand more books be removed from collections.

The American Library Association has tracked a massive increase in the number of books being challenged at schools and libraries, which soared by 65% in 2023 to a record 4,240 titles. Nearly half featured LGBTQ or racial themes, according to the association.

Many Republican-led states have subsequently embraced policies requiring schools and libraries to remove books with any sexual content — including nudity, masturbation and homosexuality — or keep them in a separate adult section. New statewide restrictions have taken effect in Utah, Idaho, South Carolina and Tennessee in recent weeks.

California is not at the center of this conflict, though it has faced scattered fights over school materials, including a high-profile showdown last year between Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Temecula school board that tried to ban an elementary school social studies textbook because it incorporated a lesson about assassinated gay politician Harvey Milk of San Francisco. In response, Newsom signed a law to penalize local districts that block books for including the history or culture of LGBTQ people and other diverse groups, while voters recalled the school board president in June.

The public library in Huntington Beach Nov. 11, 2023.

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Lauren Justice

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CalMatters

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Besides Fresno County, the city council in Huntington Beach, the iconic Orange County surf community, has also voted to create a citizen committee to review children’s library books, part of a broader push by local officials to establish a bulkhead against progressive California policies. In the latest salvo of a bitter brawl over the political future of the city, opponents are collecting signatures to place a repeal of the review board before voters next spring.

These incidents caught the attention of Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Torrance Democrat, who said public libraries are cornerstone institutions that should provide all Americans with a diverse range of perspectives.

“Teens exploring gender identity issues absolutely should have access to books that speak to their experiences and that may provide support or guidance,” he told CalMatters.

His proposal, Assembly Bill 1825, would require public libraries in California to establish a clear policy for choosing books, including a way for community members to voice their objections, but would prohibit banning material because it deals with race or sexuality. It also clarifies that library material can include sexual content that’s not obscene and leaves to the discretion of librarians where to display those books, though they could not prevent minors from checking them out.

“At the center of this bill is the fundamental respect for professionally trained librarians to be making the decisions as to what book titles and how to present them to the general public,” Muratsuchi said.

The measure has received the support of the California Library Association. Peter Coyl, the director and CEO of the Sacramento Public Library and a member of the association’s intellectual freedom committee, said librarians want to provide people with information, not pornography. While parents have the right to decide what their own children read, he said, libraries need to have materials available to serve their full communities, including families with same-gender couples and children who are questioning their identities.

“Not every book is meant for every reader,” Coyl said. “You can’t then take your belief about what’s right for your child and apply it to everyone else.”

The bill, which won overwhelming approval in the Assembly in May and has advanced smoothly through Senate committees since, must pass the Legislature by the end of August to reach the governor’s desk. A spokesperson for Newsom said the governor would not comment on pending legislation.

If it is signed into law, it could still potentially face legal challenges from defenders of library book review committees, who argue the bill prevents parents from protecting their children from adult material.

“How do we make sure our public libraries really are tools that can be used by everyone?” said Diane Pearce, a city councilmember in Clovis, a fast-growing and Republican-leaning Fresno suburb. “We want to empower our parents in this situation and the state is telling us that they can do it better than we can.”

LGBTQ families feel targeted

The debate over the book review board in Fresno County has been deeply enmeshed with anxieties around LGBTQ rights, particularly transgender youth, underscoring how advocates on either side see the committee in starkly different terms.

Clovis City Councilmember Diane Pearce posted these photos on Facebook on June 28, 2023, warning constituents: “Might want to wait until June is over to take your kids to the Clovis Public Library.

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Diane Pearce’s Clovis City Councilmember Facebook page

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As Brandau was researching his proposal last summer, the issue blew up publicly when Pearce posted a warning on Facebook that people “might want to wait until June is over to take your kids to the Clovis Public Library” alongside photos of the Pride display and a page from a book about gender identity.

Pearce said she does not object to LGBTQ content, but rather to graphic sex education books and others dealing with “transgender ideology” being targeted to young children, which she said are not appropriate themes for that age.

“I looked at it as a public service announcement,” Pearce said. “I believe that parents should be involved in their children’s exposure to that. Those issues are controversial.”

Pearce asked her city council colleagues to send a letter to the Fresno County Board of Supervisors seeking a solution, though they did not ultimately agree.

That effort mobilized local members of the LGBTQ community, such as Boren, who said the library skirmish is part of a broader pattern of religious conservatives in Fresno County overlooking or discriminating against LGBTQ families.

The Clovis school district was one of the first in the state last year to require parental notification when a student changes their name, pronouns or gender identity — a policy that the Legislature and Newsom recently made illegal in California, effective in January and pending several lawsuits.

When advocates rallied against the review committee proposal before the board of supervisors last fall, Bohren said officials ignored their expressions of support for the library and seemed only concerned with serving their constituents who aligned with their ideology.

An art display in the children’s section in the Fresno County Library Clovis Branch on July 31, 2024

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters/CatchLight Local

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“I feel like it was contrived,” she said. “It’s one specific group of people — Christian nationalists — who are deciding what is appropriate or not appropriate for my children to see.”

Brandau said opponents fundamentally misunderstood his proposal, known as the Parents Matter Act, which he already considered a compromise. No books will be banned, he said; the committee will merely move material to a restricted section of the library that parents can access if they want, allowing Fresno County to set its own community standards for what books should be readily available to children.

He said he took months to develop a policy that was “not targeting one lifestyle,” though he acknowledged that language limiting “gender-identity content” and other “content deemed age-inappropriate” encompasses books about sexuality and transgender people.

“I’m not against this material. I’m against it at the wrong age,” Brandau said. “If this didn’t involve children, it’s not the biggest deal on the planet.”

Librarians under siege

California librarians say morale in their profession has plummeted in recent years. The backlash to certain books has fomented public distrust of their intentions and stoked a host of stressful and sometimes terrifying new threats — protesters, prank calls, bomb threats and “First Amendment auditors,” who record their encounters with library workers on their phones.

“These are things we never worried about before,” said Coyl of the Sacramento Public Library. “It’s not what we signed up for as library workers. And it is probably the worst that it’s ever been.”

Some libraries that have not faced a huge number of book challenges are making precautionary changes to their policies, such as requiring that demands come from someone who proves that they actually reviewed the material and not allowing another challenge if the library keeps the book on the shelf.

The tumult has stretched even to liberal California communities not used to conflicts over cultural values. Programs where drag queens read stories to children have become a particular flash point. Two years ago, members of the far-right militia group the Proud Boys stormed a drag storytime at a library in the East Bay city of San Lorenzo.

The library in Redwood City, on the San Francisco peninsula, started a drag queen story program remotely during the pandemic. When it hosted the event in-person for the first time in 2022, several groups protested that the library was grooming and indoctrinating children. The protesters included people associated with the Proud Boys and a local homelessness nonprofit with an evangelical Christian affiliation, according to Derek Wolfgram, interim director of Redwood City’s parks and recreation department.

Wolfgram, a past president of the California Library Association, said he tries to use these situations as an opportunity to engage positively with the community. The evangelical nonprofit wanted to host a Bible storytime in response to the drag queen event, so the library created a series of story hours with faith leaders of different denominations, which Wolfgram said has been popular and appeared to draw new library users.

He recalled another exchange with a man who said the library didn’t have enough books with conservative viewpoints. Wolfgram asked for a list of recommendations, some of which were already in Redwood City’s collection and at least one — “Why I Stand,” the memoir of NBA player Jonathan Isaac — that the library added. It has since been checked out several times.

“Don’t tell me what you want to take away from anybody else. Tell me what you want to add so you feel included,” Wolfgram said.

Parents divided over review committee

In Fresno County, another Pride Month has come and gone and the library book review committee still has not launched. The deadline for applications was in April, but more than three months later, the board, which will primarily be selected by county supervisors, remains vacant.

Brandau said he received more than 40 applications, which he is reviewing. He expects to finish interviews and choose his two representatives to the committee by the end of the month.

A spokesperson said the library is waiting to receive direction from the review committee before it moves any material. In the meantime, the Clovis branch put together an elaborate Pride display in June, with a case of featured books, a historical timeline and, in the children’s section, a banner depicting melting popsicles of every color in the rainbow, with the slogan “Love is Love.”

John Gerardi, executive director of Right to Life of Central California, is among the applicants waiting to find out whether he’ll be on the committee. The Clovis father of three “frequent library-goers” under the age of 10 said he wants to move books about sexuality that he believes are being presented to children who are far too young.

On several library visits, Gerardi said, his wife has found books in the children’s section that included explicit material that did not seem appropriate for the marked grade level, such as “Sex Is a Funny Word” by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth. The sex education comic book for 8- to 10-year-olds has been one of the most challenged books in the country in recent years because of its frank discussion of sexual topics. Gerardi objected to an image that depicts a character masturbating in a bathtub and a passage about the meaning of the word sexy.

An image from the sex education comic book “Sex Is a Funny Word” by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth depicts a character masturbating in a bathtub, which some parents argue is too graphic for the children’s section of the library.

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Photo courtesy of John Gerardi

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“Some of these books just seemed completely inappropriate for healthy childhood development around sex,” Gerardi said.

Gerardi said he has lost confidence in library officials, who he believes have been dismissive of parents’ concerns even though they are not all experts on early childhood development.

“There’s this idea that they have access to some secret hidden knowledge that we don’t have. And I just don’t think that’s true,” he said. “I think that appropriate presentation of sexual themes to children is something that the taxpayers who are paying for this darn library can understand.”

Others are seeking positions on the library book review committee precisely because they do not believe it should exist at all.

“It’s absolutely disgusting trying to control a public library that way,” said Jamie Coffman, a Fresno mother of four children ranging in age from 2 to 11. She said it’s a parent’s job to monitor what their kids are reading, not anybody else’s, and people should trust the librarians’ judgment about what books they put on the shelves.

Coffman said she submitted her application with vague answers that she hoped would conceal her true intention to “take it down from the inside.” She has yet to hear back.

Raised in a conservative, Southern Baptist family, Coffman said reading helped expose her to other viewpoints as she was growing up. She worries that society is moving backward on accepting diversity and said she’s scared that her own children might have fewer books available to them.

“You can’t hide the world just to make your children into who you want them to be,” she said.

This is a developing story. For the most up-to-date information about the fire you can check:

• CalFire incident page
• Latest information about roads and evacuations
• Traffic map (Caltrans)
  

Parts of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton have been ordered to evacuate, and the 5 Freeway was briefly closed in both directions due to a wildfire in the area. The Henderson Fire had charred more than 1,118 acres as of 7 p.m.

CHP closed the 5 Freeway between Harbor Drive, near Oceanside, and Basilone Road, near the Orange County line, but began reopening the interstate just before 6 p.m.

The Camp Pendleton Fire Department was fighting the fire, according to Cal Fire.

The basics

• Acreage: 1,118 acres as of Thursday afternoon
• Containment: 0%
• Structures destroyed: None reported
• Deaths: None reported
• Injuries: None reported

Evacuation orders

According to Cal Fire: "An evacuation order has been published for the Las Flores (41 Area). All affected personnel, please evacuate to Paige Field House, located in the 11 Area." A secondary evacuation point was set up at 21 Area gym, according to the Camp Pendleton Facebook page.

Road closures

• 5 Freeway between Basilone Road and Harbor Drive, but it was being reopened.

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Fire resources and tips

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If you have to evacuate:

• Why fire officials don't want you to stay and defend your home
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• How to leave your house
• What evacuation terms mean and how to sign up for alerts

Navigating fire conditions:

• How to drive in high winds and fire danger
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• How to navigate poor air quality

How to help yourself and others:

• Resources for fire victims, evacuees and first responders
• If you want to help fire victims, resist the urge to volunteer
• How to help find lost pets

How to start the recovery process:

• What to do — and not do — when you get home after a wildfire
• How to make an insurance claim
• How to safely clean up wildfire ash

What to do for your kids:

• How to talk to children about wildfires and losing a home
• What parents should know about wildfire air quality

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Topline:

Sales: Wine sales have decreased by more than 20% over a five-year period, causing grape prices to drop and prompting California growers to take roughly a quarter of the state’s vineyards out of production.

“They have way too much of it, and they haven’t been able to sell it the last few years,” said Jess Lander, wine reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, during a conversation on AirTalk, LAist 89.3’s daily news show.

Bargain bottles: Lander has reported that bottles that typically cost around $150 are now, in some cases, going for less than $30 under a different label.

How to take advantage: Lander says if you’re looking to take advantage of the surplus bargain, look at the region on the bottle and then do a little experimenting with your palate.

Listen to the full conversation above: To learn more about the wine industry’s outlook and the effects on consumers.

California’s graduation rates reached a decade high last school year, while chronic absenteeism and suspensions continued to decline, according to the California School Dashboard released Thursday.

But progress remained uneven. Chronic absenteeism is still higher than before the pandemic, suspension rates have fallen only minimally and substantial disparities persist among student groups.

“At a time when California continues to focus on accelerating learning and closing opportunity gaps, these results provide important evidence that our sustained investments are making a difference,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement.

The California Department of Education’s dashboard tracks student success across several measures, including chronic absenteeism, suspensions, English learner progress, graduation rates and college and career readiness.

This is the first year the dashboard has been released alongside the state’s Smarter Balanced Assessment scores in English language arts, math and, now, science, giving educators and families a broader view of student outcomes.

“That’s a smart thing to do,” said Tyrone Howard, a professor of education at UCLA. “I think that way we kind of get as holistic of a picture as we can from multiple standpoints.”

The 2025-26 data comes amid a significant, ongoing decline in California student enrollment. Since the 2016-17 academic year, the state has lost 496,975 students — an 8% enrollment decrease.

Over the past decade, the state has also seen significant changes in the student population, with more students identifying as Asian, two or more races and not reported. There has also been an increase in students with disabilities and in homeless youths.

Chronic absenteeism remains above prepandemic levels 

Chronic absenteeism continued to decline in California during the 2025-26 school year, falling 1.1% from the previous year to 18.3% among students in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. The rate reached 30% during the pandemic-era spike in 2021-22. Students who are chronically absent have missed at least 18 instructional days, or 10% or more of the school year.

“The fact that we’re seeing drops, but not huge drops, is not too different from what you’re seeing across the country,” said Hedy Chang, CEO and president of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that works with school districts to reduce absenteeism.

The persistence of a high percentage of students chronically absent “points to the need for us to even deepen our work to reduce chronic absence to be even more strategic,” she added.

Downey Unified School District is among the districts that lowered its TK-8 chronic absenteeism rate from 19.2% last year to 18.4% in 2025-26. Its TK-12 rate also declined, from 20.4% to 19.9%.

Roger Brossmer, Downey Unified’s superintendent, attributes the progress to new schedules tailored to students’ needs. The district plans to “double down,” on its efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism, which remains higher than the state average, with a special focus on English learners.

Brossmer said Downey’s strong improvement in test scores – among the highest in the state – has reinforced his belief in the connection between student achievement and attendance.

“If they weren’t progressing, the number one thing they had in common was they weren’t coming to school,” Brossmer said. “And so we’ve shifted from a punitive model to more of a ‘we miss you, we need you here’ model.”

Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska native, African American and Hispanic or Latino students continued to experience chronic absenteeism at higher rates than the statewide average. The same was true for foster youths, homeless youths, students with disabilities, socioeconomically disadvantaged students and English learners.

Migrant students had a lower rate of chronic absenteeism than the state average, however.

Chang said that migrant student rates may be lower because students are leaving the state, or being detained, before they reach the 30-day attendance requirement to be counted toward chronic absenteeism data.

“It is possible that migrant youth are moving too far. You’d have to look at mobility issues at the same time,” Chang said.

Suspensions decrease minimally 

California’s suspension rate measures the number of students who were suspended for at least one day. It fell by 0.1 percentage points between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, to 2.8%.

That is part of a several-year trend of falling suspension rates since 2022-23, when the rate was 3.6%.

“It’s encouraging that suspensions are going down, but the racial disparities are still pretty noticeable and pretty significant,” Howard said.

African American students had the highest suspension rates among racial and ethnic groups, followed by American Indian/Alaska Native and Pacific Islander students. Hispanic or Latino students were close to the statewide rate.

Foster youths had a much higher suspension rate of 13%, while homeless youths, students with disabilities, migrant youths, socioeconomically disadvantaged students and English learners also exceeded the statewide rate.

Howard said the state should provide more comprehensive data that includes both in-school and out-of-school suspensions.

“I’ve seen in other states (cases) where their out-of-school suspension rates have gone down, which is what they lead with,” Howard said. “But then, when you do a deeper dive looking at the in-school suspension rates, they have gone up.”

Graduation rates: the highest in a decade 

California’s graduation rate reached 87.9% in 2025-26, the highest in a decade, according to the dashboard.

Graduation rates among Filipino, Asian and students identifying as two or more races exceeded the statewide average. Migrant students also graduated at a higher rate than the state average.

It’s likely that graduation rates are even higher in the state. The California average was skewed downward by two schools — Highlands Community Charter and California Innovative Career Academy.

Going deeper

Highlands Community Charter, an adult school, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month after an audit found it owed the state $180 million for funds it was not eligible to receive.

The school’s enrollment plummeted from 11,713 in 2024-25 to 487 in 2025-26. Its four-year graduation rate was 6.6%, according to Dataquest.

Statewide, Highlands lowered the graduation rate among Asian students by 2.8 percentage points and among white students by 4.7 percentage points.

The California Innovative Career Academy, one of the Highlands Community Charter schools, had a four-year graduation rate of 8.3%. Its enrollment fell from 1,729 students in 2024-25 to 800 in 2025-26.

College readiness also improved. Nearly 55% of graduates met the basic minimum requirements for the CSU and UC systems, a 0.9 percentage point increase from the previous year.

Meanwhile, 17.1% earned the State Seal of Biliteracy, a special designation on a student’s diploma showing a high rate of proficiency in a second language. And 33.8% received the Golden State Seal Merit Diploma, which shows mastery in at least six subject areas, marking a 0.8 and a 1.5 percentage point increase, respectively.

Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, said graduation rates and college readiness are moving in the right direction, but more students need to meet standards in English language and math.

“A certain percentage of students are being pushed through without gaining the knowledge and skills that signify they’ve achieved a truly meaningful high school education and are prepared for their next step, whether that’s college or career,” Flint said.

This story was originally published by EdSource.