Alberta school boards must now have books containing visual depictions of graphic sexual content off shelves by Jan. 5, 2026, a four month extension from the previously announced October deadline and the second deadline change since the first ministerial book restriction announcement in May. 

On Sept. 2, Calgary Board of Education (CBE) Superintendent Joanne Pitman said that the board would’ve been compliant with the then looming Oct. 1 book removal deadline.

Both the CBE and Calgary Catholic School Distrcit (CCSD), will review the order and work to algin with the updated standards.

“The Calgary Board of Education appreciates the revised ministerial order and additional time for implementation. We will review the details and resume the work of reviewing literary materials and aligning our policies,” the CBE statement read.

The revised ministerial order, announced Monday, alters removable books from those including general depictions, including written passages, of sexual acts, to strictly visual depictions and does not apply to material brought into school by a student without the knowledge of school authority.

Novels, poetry and classical literature works containing written explicit content can remain in schools.

Alberta’s Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, said that the swap was made to clarify the government’s intent.

“An image can be understood and conveyed at any grade level with any degree of comprehension, whereas vocabulary and understanding progresses and develops throughout school years,” he said.

“Our primary concern has been books with really graphic visual depiction of sexual acts and making sure that that children are not accidentally exploring that material.”

By Oct. 31, school boards must provide the Minister with a list of the school literary material that will be removed under the new standards.

School boards must also maintain a publicly available listing of all school literary material, similar to the CBE’s existing eLibrary, create policies to manage school literary materials and processes for reviewing material, according to the order. Policies must be publicly available and communicated to employees, students and parents.

Any member of a school district can request a material be reviewed, including students, parents, school authority employees and members of the school community. Requests made by outside parties will not be considered, according to Nicolaides. 

Material with visual depictions of non-sexual imagery including puberty, menstruation and breastfeeding, among others, are not captured by the ministerial order and can remain in schools, but schools must establish and maintain a publicly available list of literary materials.

Teacher-curated classroom collections will be managed school-by-school, with individual school authorities able to determine how parents are informed of materials, according to a government-issued news release.

“Whether it’s giving parents an opportunity to scan through the classroom library collection during something like a parent-teacher (conference), or sending the parents a list of materials that they have in their classroom collection would be fine and appropriate,” Nicolaides said.

“It’s just about ensuring that parents have a general understanding of what kind of material is available in their local classroom collection.”

Classroom collections are not required to be publicly available.

“We know that many teachers generously provide materials in their own classroom collection themselves, and we think that that practice is incredibly beneficial to students and helps to further enrich the available material that they have,” Nicolaides said.

Alberta Teacher’s Association President Jason Schilling called the revisons an improvement to the so called “book-ban”, but continued to call it an unneeded over reach. He said the new regulations came too late for some teachers.

“(We) saw some images leading up to the start of this school year, of teachers giving away books, schools giving away books. Those books aren’t coming back,” he said.

“A lot of that was books purchased with a teacher’s own money, and it’s disappointing and shameful to me that we didn’t have any kind of clarity moving into this start of the school year that saw teachers take such extreme steps of getting rid of materia.”

Schilling said the entire ministerial order could’ve been solved through a phone call to school boards.

Book restrictions are not attempts to ban classics: Government

After an Edmonton Public School Board list of books-to-be banned surfaced online, the revised ministerial order looks to limit the ability to misunderstand guidelines.

“In response to a school board’s proposed removal of more than 200 books, including classic works like Brave New World and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Alberta’s government has updated its standards for school literary materials,” a government issued press release reads.

“The updated standards prevent misinterpretation and ensure that restrictions focus specifically on materials with explicit visual depictions of sexual acts.”

Nicolaides said that classic literary works that “provoke the mind” are exactly the type of material that should be provided in a school library.

“There’s no concern with any of that type of material,” he said.