On May 29, Tiffany LoSasso stood before the Jefferson County school board flanked by fellow Digital Teacher Librarians from across the district. The Mandalay Middle School librarian delivered a carefully sourced, deeply personal plea: restore transparency and professional oversight to how Jeffco handles school library books.
“We implore you to make these changes as soon as possible,” LoSasso said, referencing the recent passage of Senate Bill 25-063, which requires Colorado school districts to adopt clear procedures for the acquisition, removal and review of library materials by Sept. 1.
LoSasso, who testified in favor of the bill before the Colorado Senate Education Committee in February earlier this year, said she now feels misled.
“I told lawmakers that Jeffco already had strong, protective policies in place,” she said. “But I didn’t know they had been removed. I felt betrayed.”
Jeffco once had such a policy, LoSasso explained. Known as IJL, it required the formation of trained review committees and offered clear protection for DTLs and the materials they managed.
But in June 2023, during a period without a district-level library coordinator, IJL was repealed and replaced with a more generic policy, IJ.
The new version contains just one sentence referencing library materials: “The teacher librarian, along with district personnel, have shared authority for selecting and eliminating library materials.”
LoSasso and other librarians said they were never informed of the change, and only discovered it recently when their decisions were overruled without explanation.
“We didn’t know the change had been made. We didn’t know that we had lost so much,” LoSasso said.
Book removal raises questions
The turning point came in January 2024, when they were asked to remove a popular manga series, Assassination Classroom. Manga is a style of Japanese comics and graphic novels.
A district book review committee, following Jeffco’s existing procedures, determined the series should only be available in high schools. But shortly after the committee’s decision, all librarians with the title in their collections received a district directive to remove it entirely, citing an undisclosed decision by a “district leadership team.”
“We were told it was not appropriate for any Jeffco school, which directly contradicted the committee’s recommendation,” LoSasso said. “The rationale given referenced the district’s tragic history with Columbine, which made no sense to me given the book’s premise.”
LoSasso said the book is a science fiction story in which a powerful alien becomes a junior high school teacher and challenges his students to assassinate him before he destroys the Earth.
According to librarians, the district’s rationale for removing the series centered on concerns about its depiction of students attempting to kill a teacher — a theme some administrators reportedly considered inappropriate for any school library, despite the book’s fictional and fantastical framing. No public explanation was issued at the time.
When LoSasso and others questioned the reversal, they received identical, copy-and-pasted responses. DTLs serving on the review committee were not consulted.
Then, in October 2024, principals at multiple schools were reportedly directed by district administrators to remove additional books without following Jeffco’s published challenge process.
Emails posted as evidence online after LoSasso gave public comment showed they received an email from the Degelmann stating that they were to ‘spend the next day reviewing their library catalogs for books with controversial topics’ and that the provided list of flagged keywords, such as pornography, violence and cruelty, ‘should not be printed or shared.’
LoSasso said the exercise ignored standard weeding criteria, such as condition, age and circulation data.
“It felt like censorship,” LoSasso said.
In February, a group of secondary DTLs wrote to Superintendent Tracy Dorland, Deputy Superintendent Kym LeBlanc-Esparza and Chief Academic Officer Renee Nicothodes to raise concerns.
They received no reply. A later meeting arranged through the teachers’ union resulted in a promise of follow-up that never came, according to LoSasso.
In a message to the board, Nicothodes said that district leaders recognize the concerns raised by DTLs and emphasized that Jeffco remains committed to continually improving its library policies.
She encouraged collaboration and professional dialogue moving forward, but did not directly respond to specific complaints about previous removals or communication gaps.
LoSasso added that no one from the district or board has contacted her since she spoke at the May 29 meeting.
“That silence is disappointing. We are putting ourselves out there to help, and we’ve been met with silence.”
Board pledges review; district defends process
In response to LoSasso’s public comment, board members acknowledged the confusion at their next meeting and expressed a desire to involve DTLs in future policy revisions.
Board Member Erin Kenworthy said she had already reached out to some librarians and urged a collaborative approach.
“They are the experts and I think we need to value their professional input,” she said.
Board members Paula Reed and Mary Parker also voiced concern about how the policy change was handled and whether DTLs had been given adequate notice or opportunity to contribute.
District leaders have not publicly responded to many of the specific concerns raised by librarians. Internal communications indicate some officials believed the October 2024 catalog review request was a voluntary audit aligned with national guidance, though librarians viewed it as an implicit directive.
District Library Services Coordinator Tara Degelmann emphasized in a letter to the board on June 3 that district leaders have not removed books arbitrarily and that formal review processes remain available to staff.
She said the district’s legal team is working to draft a policy in accordance with state law and that she’s working as a “thought partner with them to ensure it’s fully implemented by September.
“We are confident that Jeffco Public Schools has a strong process in place for the selection and review of library materials,” Degelmann said.
In the meantime, LoSasso said they are operating without clear guardrails and with fear that student access to books could be subject to behind-the-scenes decisions without due process.
“We are the experts on what is appropriate for our students and our communities,” LoSasso told the board. “Please let us do our jobs.”
The headline was updated to distinguish between Jeffco school librarians and Jeffco public librarians who work for the county.
An earlier version of this article included quotes attributed to Tara Degelmann that were not directly sourced. The story has been updated to reflect accurate attribution based on verified documents.