FL may copy a Texas law bringing chaplains to public schools, despite First Amendment concerns

Florida is one of about a dozen states considering allowing chaplains to provide support services to students in public schools. The trend stems from a first-of-its-kind law the Texas Legislature passed last year authorizing schools to pay for religious figures to work in mental health roles.

The Texas law went into effect in September, requiring more than 1,200 school districts to vote by March 1 for or against allowing chaplains to be employed or accepted as volunteers in counseling roles. The forced vote has escalated culture wars in Texas school boards, but many have chosen to approve chaplains as volunteer in a limited capacity only, according to Florida Phoenix partner The Texas Tribune.

“It appears that these bills in other states including Florida are following this example of Texas, even though I would say it has not been a big success in Texas because many, many school districts have looked closely at what the legislature authorized and decided to reject the idea of chaplains in public schools,” said Holly Hollman, general counsel to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

The committee organized a letter against the law signed by more than 100 Texas chaplains who work in military or health-care settings.

Requirements for volunteer chaplains

In the states that looked at the matter since last year, the standards to which the chaplains would be held vary. For example, in Indiana, chaplains could provide only secular advice and would need to hold a master’s degree in divinity, theology, or religious studies. But in most of the states pushing to bring chaplains to public schools, the only requirement would be that they pass a background check. Florida is one of those.

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The lack of additional requirements is a good thing in the view of groups supporting the bills, like the Florida Family Policy Council.

“When it comes to religious freedom there is a danger when the state begins to impose certain criteria for what constitutes proper training and proper guidelines and who meets what standards, because that can end up being unintentionally discriminatory towards certain religious sects and groups,” Aaron DiPietro, the group’s legislative affairs director, said in an interview with the Phoenix.

Despite these differing approaches, critics are united in their concern that the idea would cross a constitutional boundary in promoting religion in a government-sanctioned setting. The Florida bills allow chaplains to have any or no religious affiliation, and Florida lawmakers in favor of the proposal have pointed out that places like Congress and the military have chaplains.

Additionally, both the Florida House and Senate open floor sessions with prayers, either from invited clergy people or the chambers’ members.

This argument doesn’t hold up for Charles Russo, director of the educational leadership PhD program at the University of Dayton in Ohio. He holds law and divinity degrees.

“I don’t see this passing any reasonable test,” he said in a phone interview with the Phoenix.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983 ruled in favor of the Nebraska Legislature’s use of chaplains, Russo said, that was on the narrow grounds that the practice had enjoyed a long history in Congress; the chaplain had been in that position for 20 years; and because the participants involved were adults. There’s no longstanding tradition of public schools employing or accepting chaplains as volunteers, Russo said.

“To say that Congress, a bunch of adults, can have a chaplain to lead a ceremony of prayer is not the same as saying chaplains can come in and provide psychological counseling advice to kids when they’re not prepared to deal with issues kids may be confronting,” Russo said.

Shortage of school counselors

Although the Florida proposals don’t explicitly say volunteer chaplains would be fulfilling the role of mental health counselors, the sponsor of SB 1044, Republican Sen. Erin Grall, has expressed support for that aspect of the bill. Ultimately, school districts would create their own guidelines for the services chaplains would provide.

“I think that this can be viewed as an alternative to school counselors for some families. … There is an opportunity for some children to intersect with a different type of counseling than maybe professional mental health counseling, and that’s what this seeks to fill,” Grall said during a Senate Committee on Education PreK-12 meeting on Feb. 6.

Staff analyses of the bills point to a shortage of school counselors in the state: During the last school year, 6,754 certified school counselors served nearly 3 million students — one counselor for every 425 students. Florida school counselors must hold a master’s degree, according to the Florida Department of Education.

While it may not be outlined in the Florida bills, supporters are touting that the chaplains could provide both religious and mental health help.

“We have a mental health crisis, whether it’s social media interaction, whether it’s just the pressures on young people to attain or to have a certain appearance or to please their peers,” DiPietro said, “and I think more now than ever, our children need resources and support, especially when we’re talking about volunteer chaplains that are already in communities,”

Hollman stressed that chaplains wouldn’t hold the same qualifications as school counselors.

“We would caution strongly against the idea that chaplains can provide some kind of support services and programs that are any way appropriate in a public-school setting where the public schools are, by definition, designed to take care of all students without regard to religion, and are in no way tasked with the spiritual direction and leadership and care for the public-school students,” Hollman said.

Parental consent

Additionally, the bills going through the Florida Legislature would only allow chaplains to be volunteers. Parents would have to provide consent for chaplains to meet with their children. DiPietro sees a double standard because chaplains would be held to the parental consent standard but school counselors are not.

“This legislation actually is paramount in placing parental rights and parental oversight over the volunteer chaplains that are providing these services,” he said.

“In many cases, school guidance counselors and these mental health counselors are going around parents and are not being subjected to parental oversight and parental consent in many cases. And it’s just concerning on that front. I think a lot of mental health counselors and the school guidance counselors are doing great work, and I believe the school chaplain volunteer programs would be a tremendous asset.”

A difference between the House and Senate proposals is that Grall, who represents five counties around Fort Pierce, amended her bill to remove a provision requiring school boards to vote to approve the volunteer chaplains by Jan. 1, 2025. The House proposal, HB 931, has gone through two committees and is pending a floor vote, whereas SB 1044 still needs to clear more committees. The other states contemplating similar proposals include Alabama, Iowa, Georgia, Maryland, Utah, Nebraska, and Kansas.