2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District <\/a>guarantees the right of teachers and other school employees to engage in private prayer, as long as it isn\u2019t part of their official duties.<\/p>\n\u201cI think most experienced educators will tell you that as long as there are big games or difficult tests or pop quizzes, students will be praying while at school,\u201d Kolni said. \u201cI think most experienced educators would also agree that as long as students will try teachers\u2019 patience, school staff will also be praying in school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keller ISD board narrowly passes resolution<\/p>\n
Keller ISD\u2019s board voted 4-3 in September to direct the district\u2019s administration to draft a policy setting aside time for prayer or scripture reading. Under the district\u2019s policy, prayer periods take place before the beginning of the school day.<\/p>\n
Before the vote, Keller ISD Trustee Chelsea Kelly pushed back on the idea of a policy, saying it would create more responsibilities for teachers and building administrators. Kelly said she didn\u2019t take issue with the idea of students and teachers having the opportunity to pray at school, but she noted that those opportunities already exist. <\/p>\n
Trustee Jennifer Erickson agreed, saying she was concerned about the amount of work it would add for already-overburdened teachers and principals. Erickson also questioned whether such a policy would help prepare students to learn or do better on the state assessment. Interim Superintendent Cory Wilson said the policy wasn\u2019t aimed at helping students meet state standards, and acknowledged that it wasn\u2019t likely to lead to academic gains.<\/p>\n
Board President John Birt suggested that, if students decide to participate in a prayer gathering before school, it \u201cwill definitely affect, in a positive way, their student outcome.\u201d <\/p>\n
House sponsor says bill broadens student rights<\/p>\n
The bill\u2019s House sponsor, Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, said he was pleased to see the bill signed into law, although he acknowledged the March 1 deadline creates awkward timing for school districts, which typically roll out policy changes at the beginning of a school year.<\/p>\n
Spiller said the bill is intended to broaden students\u2019 religious expression rights while they\u2019re at school. Up to now, Texas\u2019 state education code only guaranteed students and staff the right to pray or meditate silently. The bill offers districts the opportunity to allow students to pray and read scripture openly, he said.<\/p>\n
Spiller took issue with districts\u2019 assertions that finding space for prayer would be a challenge. But he also said he thinks many districts that have decided against designating prayer time might reconsider those decisions later, when they\u2019ve had more of a chance to consider the issue. The bill intentionally leaves it up to school districts to decide how to implement such a policy \u2014 and, indeed, whether to do so at all, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a mandate bill. This is an opportunity bill,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only thing that\u2019s mandated is that they consider it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.<\/p>\n
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron and Phyllis Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab\u2019s journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As February draws to a close, school districts across Texas are facing a deadline to decide whether to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[324,11521,9029,4179,163,166,1881,116,1234,73114,954,27,29,293,28,292],"class_list":["post-182417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-dallas-fortworth","tag-dallas-isd","tag-ed-lab-local-school-news","tag-ed-lab-politics-policy","tag-education","tag-education-lab","tag-faith","tag-fort-worth","tag-keller","tag-keller-independent-school-district","tag-rockwall","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}