republic-os/legislation/us/states/va/2026/sb-19.md

---
type: "Bill"
title: "DOE; policies relating to instructional material that contains sexually explicit content."
description: "Department of Education; policies relating to instructional material that contains sexually explicit content; applicability; construction. Amends current law requiring the Department of Education to develop model policies and each school board to adopt policies consistent with the Department's model policies for ensuring parental notification of any instructional material that includes sexually explicit content by (i) defining \"instructional material\" as any material, regardless of its format, assigned and provided to a student by a public school teacher directly for the completion of an assignment or curricular objective and clarifying that \"instructional material\" does not include any book or audiovisual material available in a public school library unless specifically required or assigned by a public school teacher directly for completion of an assignment or curricular objective and (ii) providing that nothing in the applicable law or any model policy or amendments thereto adopted by the Department or any policy or amendments thereto adopted by a school board pursuant to the applicable law shall be (a) construed to permit the censoring of books in any public elementary or secondary school or (b) utilized as a rationale or basis for the removal of books from any public elementary or secondary school. This bill is identical to HB 1499."
jurisdiction: "us/states/va"
legislature: "Virginia General Assembly"
session: "2026"
identifier: "SB 19"
citation: "Virginia SB 19 (2026)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Mamie E. Locke"]
version_count: 3
action_count: 29
vote_count: 5
first_action: "2025-11-17"
last_action: "2026-04-06"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/2677bf38-0212-41f8-a8a6-bd09c42c0dee"
source_url: "https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/SB19"
source_hash: "f38b88122f2de7b45d0fc93105182a58479f7cb37055616d8f5e53787166bb59"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-va"]
---

# Virginia SB 19 (2026) — DOE; policies relating to instructional material that contains sexually explicit content.

Department of Education; policies relating to instructional material that contains sexually explicit content; applicability; construction. Amends current law requiring the Department of Education to develop model policies and each school board to adopt policies consistent with the Department's model policies for ensuring parental notification of any instructional material that includes sexually explicit content by (i) defining "instructional material" as any material, regardless of its format, assigned and provided to a student by a public school teacher directly for the completion of an assignment or curricular objective and clarifying that "instructional material" does not include any book or audiovisual material available in a public school library unless specifically required or assigned by a public school teacher directly for completion of an assignment or curricular objective and (ii) providing that nothing in the applicable law or any model policy or amendments thereto adopted by the Department or any policy or amendments thereto adopted by a school board pursuant to the applicable law shall be (a) construed to permit the censoring of books in any public elementary or secondary school or (b) utilized as a rationale or basis for the removal of books from any public elementary or secondary school. This bill is identical to HB 1499.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Introduced** (filed) — [source](https://lis.blob.core.windows.net/files/1081288.PDF)
2. **Chaptered** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.blob.core.windows.net/files/1217442.PDF)
3. **Enrolled** (enrolled) — [source](https://lis.blob.core.windows.net/files/1177053.PDF)

## Votes

- Reported from Education — **14–7** (pass) · lower
- H VOTE: — **62–34** (pass) · lower
- Passage R — **21–18** (pass) · upper
- Reported from Education and Health — **8–5** (pass) · upper
- Constitutional reading dispensed R — **39–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Mamie E. Locke — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2025-11-17** Prefiled and ordered printed; Offered 01-14-2026 26100692D `filing, introduction`
- **2025-11-17** Referred to Committee on Education and Health `referral-committee`
- **2026-01-15** Assigned Education sub: Public Education `referral-committee`
- **2026-01-22** Reported from Education and Health (8-Y 5-N 1-A) `committee-passage`
- **2026-01-23** Rules suspended
- **2026-01-23** Constitutional reading dispensed (on 1st reading) (39-Y 0-N 0-A)
- **2026-01-23** Passed by for the day (Voice Vote)
- **2026-01-23** Passed by for the day
- **2026-01-26** Engrossed by Senate (Voice Vote)
- **2026-01-26** Read second time `reading-2`
- **2026-01-26** Engrossed by Senate
- **2026-01-27** Read third time and passed Senate (21-Y 18-N 0-A) `passage, reading-3`
- **2026-02-03** Placed on Calendar
- **2026-02-03** Read first time `reading-1`
- **2026-02-03** Referred to Committee on Education `referral-committee`
- **2026-02-04** Fiscal Impact Statement from Department of Planning and Budget (SB19)
- **2026-02-18** Reported from Education (14-Y 7-N) `committee-passage`
- **2026-02-20** Read second time `reading-2`
- **2026-02-23** Read third time `reading-3`
- **2026-02-23** Passed House (62-Y 34-N 0-A) `passage`
- **2026-02-24** Enrolled `enrolled`
- **2026-02-24** Bill text as passed Senate and House (SB19ER) `passage`
- **2026-02-24** Fiscal Impact Statement from Department of Planning and Budget (SB19)
- **2026-02-24** Signed by Speaker `passage`
- **2026-02-24** Signed by President `passage`
- **2026-03-10** Enrolled Bill communicated to Governor on March 10, 2026 `enrolled, executive-receipt`
- **2026-03-10** Governor's Action Deadline 11:59 p.m., April 13, 2026 `executive-receipt`
- **2026-04-06** Approved by Governor-Chapter 322 (effective 7/1/2026) `executive-signature`
- **2026-04-06** Acts of Assembly Chapter text (CHAP0322)

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/2677bf38-0212-41f8-a8a6-bd09c42c0dee`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Virginia legislature records).