Given an opportunity by the Texas Legislature to set aside time each day for students and staff to pray, most school districts appear to have declined the offer.
Senate Bill 11 required Texas school boards to decide by March 1 whether to provide a daily devotional period, which students could attend during noninstructional hours to pray and read the Bible or other religious text, likely before school.
But one of the key lawmakers who guided the bill through the Legislature has identified only 15 school districts that have opted into the prayer period. Many other urban, suburban and rural districts voted against it.
“I respect their opinion. They know their communities,” said Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro. “That’s not to say that they can’t come back and revisit it. But this is not a mandate. I’ve said very clearly from the start, this is not a mandate bill. The only thing that’s mandated is if they consider it. They don’t have to adopt it.”
SB 11 is part of a slate of bills approved in recent legislative sessions that aim to promote a conservative brand of Christianity in public education and test the legal limits of church-state separation.
The Texas Legislature has passed laws requiring schools to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms, allowing unlicensed chaplains to offer counseling services to students and setting the foundation for an optional state curriculum filled with references to Christianity.
SB 11 requires school districts that establish the prayer period to obtain signed consent forms from interested families, which waive parents’ right to sue the district for alleged violations of state or federal law and acknowledge that students have a choice to attend the religious gathering.
The law prohibits schools from reading religious texts over a public address system, and school leaders must ensure the prayer period does not take place in the physical presence or within earshot of students who lack parental consent.
More than 160 Texas faith leaders urged districts to oppose the policy, noting the administrative burden, students’ existing rights to practice their religion and the potential harm to children who decide not to participate. Civil rights advocates also argued the law violates the separation between church and state.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suggested otherwise, not only encouraging students to take advantage of prayer time but also suggesting they engage with the Lord’s Prayer “as taught by Jesus Christ.”
But many of Texas’ roughly 1,200 districts and charters, including those in politically conservative communities, declined.
They questioned how schools would manage the parental consent requirements. Some opposed what they saw as state leaders promoting a conservative vision of Christianity. Others pointed to federal, state and school policies that already allow students to organize religious clubs and prayer periods.
“In reality, there was no need for it,” said Alex Kotara, vice president of the Karnes City school district board, which is located in a conservative town southeast of San Antonio.
“It passes the buck to local school districts to make that decision, but it also does it in a way that requires them to also opt out — not just opt in — which then, from an elected official standpoint, puts you in a position where, when they boil down a convoluted, kind of contradictory bill to a sound bite, it’s going to be that we did not allow prayer in school,” Kotara said.
Spiller, the bill sponsor, acknowledged that federal and state laws already protect students’ ability to practice their religion at school. But he believes SB 11 builds on existing protections by requiring participating schools to allow time for prayer each day.
“It’s not a gotcha bill,” Spiller said. “But I think if boards just vote this down without forethought, consideration and seeking the will of their public, do I think that they will hear from it? Yes, I do. I think their constituents will let them know that they don’t appreciate them, in many instances, blocking a right that they have when it costs the school nothing.”
The Aledo school district in North Texas opted in, but board members didn’t necessarily vote in favor of the period because they felt it expanded students’ rights, said school board President Forrest Collins.
“Basically, the state Legislature forced us to vote on something schools already support, and our vote was really just to reaffirm the constitutional rights of students,” Collins said. “I felt like, personally, the bill was kind of a waste of time.”
___
This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
