Dear Chair Smith and Honorable Members of the Committee:
Chairman, hello again, members of the committee. My name is Mikayla Arciaga, M.A.Ed. I am the IDRA Georgia Advocacy Director, and I coordinate the Georgia Education Justice Coalition. We represent stakeholders across the state, including school librarians. I am here to answer some of the questions we heard about process, specifically in schools, where a lot of the concerns for the language as written and in the amendment we saw.
The school process for material review is incredibly intensive and democratic. When a material is disputed, it is not just a librarian who makes a unilateral decision. They call in experts at the grade level. They invite parents. They invite students. That varies in specific details across systems, but in general, every school district and every public library system is required to have a process that outlines this.
Our concern about Senate Bill 74 is that there are not clear guidelines for what the community is necessarily looking for and what you all are looking for. And then we have jumped straight from trying to provide material standards for what you all want to see and added criminal penalties, essentially setting librarians up to fail and then be charged as criminals.
So, I would encourage us to consider that this is a larger process. We have 26 more days of legislative session to take our time and figure out how to merge all of these processes. We must have due diligence for the incredible pillars of our community and support our librarians by making sure we do this correctly. Thank you.
IDRA is available for any questions or further resources that we can provide. Thank you for your consideration. For more information, please contact Mikayla Arciaga, M.A.Ed., IDRA Georgia Advocacy Director at [mikayla.arciaga@idra.org].
IDRA is an independent, non-profit organization led by Celina Moreno, J.D. Our mission is to achieve equal educational opportunity for every child through strong public schools that prepare all students to access and succeed in college.
Mikayla Arciaga, M.A.Ed., IDRA Georgia Advocacy Director (mikayla.arciaga@idra.org)
Protect Public Education Day of Action – Thursday, February 17, 2026 Hello! Tomorrow, IDRA’s coalition, the Georgia Coalition for Education Justice, along with Fund Georgia’s
