Five months since she stood in her house crying and her husband said it wasn’t worth it anymore. Six months since she broke out in hives, since eczema crept up the side of her face, since she started having trouble sleeping and got a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication. “Districts should err on the side of caution.” It had been seven months since she began collecting Florida’s laws and statutes in a purple folder on her desk, highlighting the sections that made her mad, and also the ones that could get her fired. Nine months since she had taken Florida’s new training for librarians, a mandatory hour-long video, and heard the state say that books in the library must not contain sexual content that could be “harmful to minors” and that violating this statute would result in a third-degree felony. It was before a member of the conservative group Moms for Liberty told her on Facebook, a few days later, that she shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near students. It was before she received a phone call from the district, the day after that, instructing her to remove four books from her shelves. That was before the school board meeting on April 5, 2022, when Tania watched parents read aloud from books they described as a danger to kids. The floor plan was open, designed by architects who had promised “the 21st century media center.” The chairs had wheels that moved soundlessly across the carpet. She could have stayed for years at Tohopekaliga, a school she loved that had only just opened in 2018. Tania had planned to spend the rest of her career in the Osceola County School District. The door to Tania's office at the school library. Tania writes a goodbye email to her Tohopekaliga High colleagues. But even if she did put up the posters, who would be there to see them once she left? The library would be closed after this week, until they found someone to take her place. She had thought about pushing back against the district, had imagined putting up posters all over the walls from the American Library Association celebrating “freedom to read,” a final act before her last day on Friday. Her husband was always reminding her: Tania, you have no sense of self-preservation. “They asked us to please not celebrate Banned Books Week,” Tania said. It was one more thing the state had asked of them, a mandatory recitation of parts of the Declaration of Independence “to reaffirm the American ideals of individual liberty,” along with something else she had heard from the district. “What’s the name of this thing?” he said. She’d wanted to get to the box right away, but now she saw one of the school administrators at her door, asking whether she’d heard about the latest education mandate in Florida.

She heard the first-period bell ring, 7:15 a.m.

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