Deadline reached for school districts to decide on chaplains

The deadline for Texas public school districts to adopt or reject a new policy has arrived. That policy allowed local school districts to decide by March 1 to “employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain to provide ‘support, services, and programs for students.’”

“[S]chools may choose to do this or not, and they can put whatever rules and regulations in place that they see fit,” said Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, author of the House version of the bill.

According to a March 1 post by Texas Impact, “The largest 25 school districts in Texas have all rejected creating a new chaplain program.”

Frisco and Plano ISDs in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and Katy, Cypress-Fairbanks and Conroe ISDs in the Houston area are among school districts that opted out of the policy, according to Texas Impact.

Fort Worth and Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISDs declined to “hire chaplains for duties beyond the scope of a normal volunteer, like reading books or helping during events.” Instead, these districts and others will retain their current policies allowing chaplains to volunteer in accordance with requirements of all volunteers.

Dripping Springs, McKinney, San Marcos, Gainesville, Brownsboro and Edinburgh ISDs also declined to change their policies, according to John Litzler, Texas Baptists’ general counsel and the Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission director of public policy.

Litzler was not aware of any school districts that opted to enact the new chaplain policy.

Since the decision was left up to each school board, “unless you go pull the public records from all the school board meetings for every school district in Texas,” there’s not an easy way to know who did or did not adopt the new policy, Litzler said.

Baptist leaders respond

“It’s not surprising to me that the largest districts that tend to be more urban and have more access to school counselors don’t need chaplains to fill that role,” Litzler said, while agreeing with districts “evaluating their needs on a case-by-case basis.”

“Some districts may have a need for a school chaplain if they can’t get counselors,” Litzler added, referring particularly to rural districts.

When asked what the next step might be for the school chaplain policy, Litzler pointed to efforts made to improve the bill before it was passed.

“Making sure the chaplain had been recommended by an agency that had approval from [the] Texas Department of Criminal Justice or the military” or other endorsing organization with high credentialing standards would have been helpful, Litzler said. If the legislature “went back and amended the law to do that, that would be great.”

“The bill was unnecessary in the first place,” Charles Johnson, Pastors for Texas Children executive director, said.

School districts have trained, well-educated, clinically experienced counselors “our children need,” he said. Additionally, many school counselors are “people of faith. They’re in our churches. They carry the Lord God with them in their hearts. They’re motivated by the compassion of God for these children.”

Pastors for Texas Children has close relationships with public school superintendents throughout Texas, Johnson said, and knew most school districts would not change their existing volunteer policies to adopt the new policy.

“This was a culture-war bill designed to violate our God-given religious liberty by advancing a very thin, right-wing extremist, fringe version of Christianity. That’s the reason the top 25 districts have not participated in the program,” Johnson said.

Background on the policy

SB763, supported by conservative groups such as Texas Values Action and National School Chaplain Association, was passed May 9, 2023, during the 88th Texas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott as Chapter 23 of the Texas Education Code. It went into effect Sept. 1, 2023. School boards had until March 1, 2024, to decide whether to adopt the new policy.

In August 2023, more than 100 Texas chaplains signed an open letter urging all school board members in Texas to opt out of allowing chaplains to serve in the capacity outlined by SB763. More than a third of the chaplains were Baptists, including some endorsed by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

The open letter pointed to religious liberty concerns, among other things.

“Not only are chaplains serving in public schools likely to bring about conflict with the religious beliefs of parents, but chaplains serving in public schools would also amount to spiritual malpractice by the chaplains,” the letter stated.

Those, such as Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, who opposed passage of the bill worried it “will lead to Christian nationalists infiltrating our public schools and indoctrinating our students.” Talarico is a Presbyterian seminarian.

Proponents of the bill, such as Julie Pickren—a current member of Texas’ State Board of Education—contended, “There are children who need chaplains.”

Hefner, refusing to amend the bill to prohibit proselytizing, defended the training chaplains receive, which he contended makes clear proselytizing is to be avoided.

“This is just to supplement and complement our counselors in doing the job that (are) working really hard,” Religion News Service quoted Hefner saying.