The North East Independent School District board of trustees voted Monday evening not to accept unlicensed religious chaplains on school campuses to provide mental health support after debating the issue twice in recent months.
Senate Bill 763, a law passed in the last legislative session, required school boards to take such a vote by March 1, prompting a flurry of debates across the state in recent weeks as board members try to grapple with what some see as a political litmus test from Republican state legislators.
Several North East ISD community members, religious leaders and one student spoke out against the proposed policy, sharing concerns about the separation of church and state and the fact that no certification or licensing is required to become a chaplain under the law.
Trustees discussed the possibility of running a pilot program to see the impact of chaplains at one school or an “opt-in” policy that would allow chaplains to interact with students with parental consent, but trustees did not vote on those ideas.
Trustee Diane Sciba Villarreal said the unified voice from the community was evident.
“Overwhelmingly, from the feedback that we received … people don’t want this,” she said. “And it’s sad, you know, in a perfect world, people would, however … we’re all elected, and we’re all the voices for our communities.”
If she voted for it anyway, Sciba Villarreal said she would be “stabbing my community in the back.”
Six speakers, including a retired physics professor and teacher, religious leaders, and a student, asked the trustees to vote against the measure, while two spoke in favor of passing a policy.
Among those who spoke against the policy was Mara Nathan, the senior rabbi at Temple Beth-El.
“Living a life of faith is obviously very important to me, and I strive to encourage all the members of my congregation to do the same,” she said. “But people choose to affiliate with our congregation or with any other faith community. By having religious chaplains in schools, this creates an environment that takes away religious neutrality in a space that should remain secular.”
Nathan added that such a situation could also lead to chaplains offering counsel that differs from the student’s religious upbringing at a vulnerable moment in a child’s life.
“This does not only affect Jewish students,” she said. “Muslim students, Hindu students or students of any other faith tradition of which there are so many in the wonderfully diverse NEISD district.”
Marsha Landry, who was the only trustee to cast a vote allowing chaplains on campus, argued that content imposing religious values is already being taught in classrooms, pointing to what she sees as unauthorized guidance through the teaching of multiple gods in science class and a teacher asking children for their pronouns at the beginning of the year.
“My son came home from school one day, so excited about the new gods he learned about in science,” she said. “Nobody came and said ‘Hey, we’re gonna be teaching your son about other deities.'”
She advocated for a clearly defined policy allowing chaplains to serve in student guidance roles on campuses.
Trustee David Beyer said during the debate that he was worried any policy allowing chaplains on campus could become a “slippery slope” toward them taking on the role of a counselor.
Diana Kenny, a lecturer and the director of the School of Psychology in Trinity University’s Education department told the San Antonio Report that chaplains have no place in K-12 schools and are not equipped to handle the specialized needs of student mental health.
“From my reading of the law, there’s no specific requirement or training for a chaplain in mental health intervention,” she said. “So I think it’s way too broad to suggest that someone who’s certified as a chaplain is also certified as a mental health professional.”
Before the vote, Landry pointed to the success of chaplains in the military as an example of why they should also be in schools.
Kenny said the environments are not comparable.
“For one, they are adults,” she said. “Two, those are people who are looking to access religious services, right? School children are not looking to access religious services; they are looking specifically for assistance with emotional difficulties that may or may not include some sort of seeking of faith connected to that, but not not specifically seeking faith.”
