After receiving an anonymous donation of Ten Commandments posters, the district is complying with Texas Senate Bill 10 to display those posters within its classrooms.<\/p>\n
The bill was signed into state law Friday, June 20 by Gov. Greg Abbott and was enacted beginning with the 2025-2026 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GISD Chief of Student Services Officer Joe Gordy notified parents and guardians Saturday, Nov. 15 of the installation of the posters through the district\u2019s online resource ParentSquare.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchool districts are not required to purchase the posters, but must display the poster if the district receives a donation meeting the poster requirements,\u201d Gordy said. \u201cGraham ISD did recently receive a private donation of posters that meet the specifications for posting per Senate Bill 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
Installation of the posters began Friday, Nov. 14 with the GISD maintenance department hanging posters outside of instructional hours to minimize classroom learning disruptions.<\/p>\n
Within the notification, the district stated that GISD staff have \u201cspecific action steps to notate where in the classroom the poster shall be posted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A public elementary or secondary school is required to accept and display \u201cin a conspicuous place\u201d in each classroom a durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments if they are donated to the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had our teachers mark the location in their classroom where they would like for that to be,\u201d Gordy said. \u201cWe did not put them in a consistent place in front of the room or next to the door, we allowed the teachers to decide where the conspicuous place in their classroom would be posted. But, it can\u2019t be covered up by other things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordy said in late October enough posters were donated to cover all the classrooms within the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we receive a voluntary donation, we have to comply with Senate Bill 10 until we become involved in litigation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday, Nov. 18 requiring some school districts to remove their Ten Commandments displays by Monday, Dec. 1 and prohibiting new displays.<\/p>\n
A lawsuit was filed in September by a group of multiple faiths and nonreligious families with children in those districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in an August statement that schools not involved in ongoing litigation must abide by SB 10 and display the Ten Commandments.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther organizations, such as the ACLU, \u2026have filed requests for injunctions in larger districts that the court is taking action on,\u201d Gordy said. \u201cMany of our larger districts that have been part of ongoing litigation, those posters have had to be taken down. But the state of Texas says we have to comply with law unless our district is part of the litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the law states the district must display the poster in the classroom, GISD has advised teachers on how to address students with questions regarding the posters.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeachers will not be providing instruction about the posters\u2013if students have questions, they will be encouraged to discuss those with their parents,\u201d Gordy said.<\/p>\n
The law states that the district can, but is not required, to purchase posters for classrooms that do not include a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments using district funds.<\/p>\n
Within the bill it states that the text of the Ten Commandments must be in a size and typeface that is legible to someone with average eyesight from anywhere in the classroom where it is displayed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The poster must be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall and must read as stated in the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After receiving an anonymous donation of Ten Commandments posters, the district is complying with Texas Senate Bill 10…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-58275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58275","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=58275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}