Jewish groups are fighting a new Texas law that allows unlicensed chaplains to replace school guidance counselors
Texas school boards must vote by March 1 on whether to allow the switch
Texas state troopers stand around the lone star in the rotunda of the state capitol in Austin. Photo by Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images
By Beth Harpaz February 20, 2024
A coalition of Jewish groups and other organizations is fighting an effort to replace guidance counselors with chaplains in public schools in Texas.
The chaplains are not required to be licensed as mental health practitioners or have any specific credentials, and they will be paid with tax dollars. They’re permitted to evangelize, and they can work with children without parental approval.
Every school board in Texas must vote by March 1 on how many guidance counselors should be replaced by chaplains under the policy.
“This dangerous policy advances Christian nationalism and puts our kids at risk,” wrote Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, one group fighting the policy.
Texas has 1,200 school boards. Pesner said the nine districts with the highest Jewish populations have all rejected the proposal. He added that similar proposals have been introduced in Ohio and Georgia.
The Texas Legislature passed the bill allowing schools to replace guidance counselors with chaplains last year. Lawmakers who sought an amendment requiring school chaplains to have the same credentials as chaplains working in prisons or the U.S. military were unsuccessful. Also defeated were amendments barring chaplains from trying to convert students, requiring parental approval for children to be counseled by chaplains, and requiring schools to provide chaplains of whatever religion students asked for.
The National School Chaplain Association, a conservative Christian group, is behind the Texas law and efforts elsewhere pushing for what it calls “spiritual care, support, and Biblical guidance for children, teachers, and staff in public schools throughout many states.” Supporters believe Christian-based counseling is the way to solve problems like drug abuse, suicide and school shootings.
A separate bill requiring the Ten Commandments on Texas classroom walls expired before it got voted on last year. But Texas’ Republican-controlled state government has already implemented many other conservative policies, including one of the country’s toughest abortion bans and various anti-LGBTQ+ measures.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
