Texas: The Issue Is - Should chaplains be in public schools?

AUSTIN, Texas - Starting this school year, unlicensed religious chaplains will be allowed to work in Texas public schools.

In May, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 763 which would allow Texas schools to use safety funds to pay for unlicensed chaplains to work in mental health roles. Volunteer chaplains will also be allowed in schools, says the Texas Tribune.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed it into law in June.

Rejected amendments to the bill include:

• Requirements for chaplains to have similar accreditation as chaplains who work in prisons or the U.S. military
• Banning proselytizing or attempts to convert students from one religion to another
• Requirements for chaplains to receive consent from the parents of school children
• Requirements for schools to provide chaplains from any faith or denomination requested by students

The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State recently sent a letter to local school leaders across Texas about SB 763, warning districts not to adopt a policy allowing chaplains as student counselors claiming the new state law is unconstitutional.

In this Texas: The Issue Is, FOX 7 Austin's Rudy Koski sits down with Robert Boston with Americans United for Separation of Church and State to discuss that letter and their objections to the law.

ROBERT BOSTON:  We know the purpose of a chaplain is to provide spiritual solace, comfort, religious counseling, that sort of thing. And there are contexts where that's appropriate, such as the military or hospitals and other applications. But in a public school, that's really a problem because public schools serve children from lots of different religious backgrounds, and those of no faith. And the idea of spiritual counseling and spiritual advice, that really belongs at the home and the church, not in the public school. 

RUDY KOSKI: The legislature has done things by putting that Ten Commandments in, prayer or at least time for silence. Why still object to having chaplains at least come in and provide some comfort or advice? 

ROBERT BOSTON: The public school system in the United States has been secularized, I think rightly, since the early 1960s, when the Supreme Court handed down the school prayer rulings. Now, the Supreme Court didn't say kids can't pray in school. They said that public schools can't compel or coerce young people to pray in schools. And I think that's the principle we really need to keep in mind here, is that young people should have the right to engage in religious activity if they choose to. When you bring chaplains in or when public schools sponsor religious activity in other ways, I think that creates an element of coercion, an element of control, an element of even force that isn't really appropriate in public education. 

RUDY KOSKI: In some of the debate, discussion that I heard on this legislation, there was talk about putting up some guardrails that would prevent the chaplains from pushing a religious belief one side or the other, and that this was more of an opportunity to have an adult to try to help a kid in a stressful situation for school districts that don't have the resources to bring in extra counselors. Why is that wrong, as long as you have some guardrails up?

ROBERT BOSTON: No, I'm surprised that anybody would say that they could put guardrails up and one of them would be that a chaplain, who is a religious counselor, would not talk about religion. And that just doesn't make any sense. I understand that there are challenges in some school districts in Texas with providing school counselors. Well, the answer to that is for the legislature to allocate money so that those districts that are struggling will have the resources to provide those counselors. Instead, the legislature seems to think they can just push this job onto chaplains, and that's just problematic on many levels. 

RUDY KOSKI: This isn't a morality attack, is it? 

ROBERT BOSTON: Well, we all know that there are problems young people experience in all facets of their lives, and we want there to be support for them. And that's why I think it really would have been a much better avenue for Texas lawmakers to go down to provide secular counselors for those districts that can't afford them. There are other ways to do this that would help and that would respect everybody's rights. There are ways that would give young people the support they need but not raise these church/state violations. What we're saying basically here is that we're going to be keeping an eye on what's going on in Texas. And if we get evidence of something happening that we believe is clearly a violation of separation of church and state or a public school advocating for religion in an inappropriate way, that we would want to come in and address that. Now, our hope would be that we don't have to sue over this or we don't have to go to court. We would rather engage in a dialog.