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The Elgin Independent School District decided to keep chaplains out of their student support services and programs with a split vote.
Senate Bill 763 was approved by the state with an 84-60 vote and required the School Board to act on whether or not they will allow religious chaplains to be hired as school counselors without accredited certification.
After careful deliberation and community input, both in favor of and against the bill, a 4-3 decision ruled that Elgin ISD will not permit a district campus to employ or accept chaplains as volunteers.
“Chaplains do have a wealth of counseling training with regards to all sorts of trauma informed help, and marital advice, and child rearing and all sorts of things, so we don’t want to negate that they could certainly bring a wealth of resources to our district. But as far as school counseling specifically, we as a district would have to determine what criteria we would establish to allow them to do that,” said Al Rodriguez, assistant superintendent of human capital.
A look at school districts across Central Texas shows that most programs are not willing to change their standard of qualification; Eanes ISD, Jarrell ISD, Manor ISD, New Braunfels ISD, Pflugerville ISD and Taylor ISD all voted against the ruling.
Other municipalities, like Austin and Bastrop, will allow the religious figures to work as volunteers if they match set criteria.
Elgin ISD board members recognized that it’s good to have options for students, and didn’t want to rule it out forever, but narrowing the bill down to the one specific title of “chaplain” and the lack of certification led to its rejection.
“This is uncharted territory for us, I really don’t want to see us move forward with this as of yet, I think it would set a dangerous precedent,” said one board member.
Before the decision was made, residents of Elgin took to the podium to share their own insight and concern surrounding a separation of church and state.
“I want to defend for my clergy friends, the fact that they are very busy people, and it would be very difficult for a person to continue to serve a congregation fully and be a full time counselor, or even part-time counselor,” said a local retired pastor. “Having had experience, I know how difficult it would be for a clergy person who has been ordained by their respective denomination or religious group to put their theology and foundational beliefs into neutral when working in a stressful situation.”
Behind every comment was a shared idea that Elgin’s youth are important, and decisions like this need to be made carefully.
The topic is open to be brought up again in future board meetings.
