A North Texas faculty board has unanimously voted to decide out of adopting a brand new coverage that may put aside devoted time in the course of the faculty day for prayer and bible study, citing considerations that it might impose pointless restrictions on college students’ current constitutional rights.
The choice, made throughout a Denton Unbiased College District (ISD) board of trustees assembly on Dec. 9, is available in response to Senate Invoice 11 (SB 11), a bipartisan measure handed by the Texas Legislature requiring all faculty districts to vote on whether or not to implement such a coverage by March 2026. Districts that decline, like Denton ISD, positioned about 40 miles north of the Dallas-Fort Value metroplex, face no additional obligations underneath the legislation.
In a vote on the adoption of a decision based mostly on SB 11, the Denton ISD board decided that “current state and federal legislation … already protects college students’ rights to voluntarily pray, learn spiritual texts, specific spiritual viewpoints, and arrange spiritual teams.”
The board additionally decided such a transfer was “pointless and would impose further procedural necessities on rights that college students already totally possess.”
Denton ISD’s authorized counsel, Deron Robinson, suggested the board towards adoption, warning that the coverage’s strict pointers might restrict moderately than increase spiritual expression.
“The coverage could be very specific on the way it has to look, and it will really put very limiting components across the occasions a scholar might pray, might learn scripture,” Robinson stated in the course of the assembly.
He highlighted further constraints, similar to prohibiting prayer or bible study within the presence of scholars with out signed parental consent kinds. “It could basically deprive college students of a number of the rights they at present have, to the purpose the place, if I’m being actual sincere, whenever you put guidelines on one thing, there’s an assumption that you simply’re going to implement these guidelines,” Robinson stated. “I feel for those who had a scholar who had been to hope exterior of the designated time to hope, and also you had been to take difficulty with it and attempt to cease them, I don’t assume that may maintain as much as a constitutional problem.”
The vote makes Denton ISD the second faculty district in Texas to resolve towards implementing SB 11, which permits districts to designate time, similar to earlier than the varsity day or in particular areas, for prayer or studying spiritual texts, together with the Bible and different texts.
In October, Lytle ISD, positioned about 10 miles southwest of San Antonio, selected to not undertake SB 11 based mostly on the varsity board’s said “need to protect college students’ most flexibility to hope, learn scripture, or focus on religion naturally and voluntarily all through the day — simply because the legislation already permits.”
“Declining SB 11 doesn’t imply we’re towards prayer,” the district stated in an announcement. “It means we’re for particular person freedom and each scholar’s proper to reside out their beliefs with out restriction or separation.”
Underneath SB 11, taking part college students and employees are required to signal consent kinds acknowledging no objection to the exercise and waiving sure authorized rights, together with claims underneath the First Modification’s Institution Clause.
The legislation explicitly bans broadcasting prayers over loudspeakers and prohibits utilizing the interval as an alternative choice to educational time.
College students retain their constitutional rights to hope, meditate, research spiritual texts, or have interaction in voluntary spiritual actions exterior any designated interval, offered they don’t disrupt courses or faculty operations.
The laws is a part of broader efforts by Texas lawmakers to include extra spiritual components in public faculties. Senate Invoice 10 (SB 10), signed into legislation by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, required each public faculty classroom in Texas to prominently show a 16-by-20-inch poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments in a selected English translation.
Final month, a federal choose ordered the removing of Ten Commandments posters in seven faculty districts, marking the second such injunction towards SB 10 because it took impact in September.
A North Texas faculty board has unanimously voted to decide out of adopting a brand new coverage that may put aside devoted time in the course of the faculty day for prayer and bible study, citing considerations that it might impose pointless restrictions on college students’ current constitutional rights.
The choice, made throughout a Denton Unbiased College District (ISD) board of trustees assembly on Dec. 9, is available in response to Senate Invoice 11 (SB 11), a bipartisan measure handed by the Texas Legislature requiring all faculty districts to vote on whether or not to implement such a coverage by March 2026. Districts that decline, like Denton ISD, positioned about 40 miles north of the Dallas-Fort Value metroplex, face no additional obligations underneath the legislation.
In a vote on the adoption of a decision based mostly on SB 11, the Denton ISD board decided that “current state and federal legislation … already protects college students’ rights to voluntarily pray, learn spiritual texts, specific spiritual viewpoints, and arrange spiritual teams.”
The board additionally decided such a transfer was “pointless and would impose further procedural necessities on rights that college students already totally possess.”
Denton ISD’s authorized counsel, Deron Robinson, suggested the board towards adoption, warning that the coverage’s strict pointers might restrict moderately than increase spiritual expression.
“The coverage could be very specific on the way it has to look, and it will really put very limiting components across the occasions a scholar might pray, might learn scripture,” Robinson stated in the course of the assembly.
He highlighted further constraints, similar to prohibiting prayer or bible study within the presence of scholars with out signed parental consent kinds. “It could basically deprive college students of a number of the rights they at present have, to the purpose the place, if I’m being actual sincere, whenever you put guidelines on one thing, there’s an assumption that you simply’re going to implement these guidelines,” Robinson stated. “I feel for those who had a scholar who had been to hope exterior of the designated time to hope, and also you had been to take difficulty with it and attempt to cease them, I don’t assume that may maintain as much as a constitutional problem.”
The vote makes Denton ISD the second faculty district in Texas to resolve towards implementing SB 11, which permits districts to designate time, similar to earlier than the varsity day or in particular areas, for prayer or studying spiritual texts, together with the Bible and different texts.
In October, Lytle ISD, positioned about 10 miles southwest of San Antonio, selected to not undertake SB 11 based mostly on the varsity board’s said “need to protect college students’ most flexibility to hope, learn scripture, or focus on religion naturally and voluntarily all through the day — simply because the legislation already permits.”
“Declining SB 11 doesn’t imply we’re towards prayer,” the district stated in an announcement. “It means we’re for particular person freedom and each scholar’s proper to reside out their beliefs with out restriction or separation.”
Underneath SB 11, taking part college students and employees are required to signal consent kinds acknowledging no objection to the exercise and waiving sure authorized rights, together with claims underneath the First Modification’s Institution Clause.
The legislation explicitly bans broadcasting prayers over loudspeakers and prohibits utilizing the interval as an alternative choice to educational time.
College students retain their constitutional rights to hope, meditate, research spiritual texts, or have interaction in voluntary spiritual actions exterior any designated interval, offered they don’t disrupt courses or faculty operations.
The laws is a part of broader efforts by Texas lawmakers to include extra spiritual components in public faculties. Senate Invoice 10 (SB 10), signed into legislation by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, required each public faculty classroom in Texas to prominently show a 16-by-20-inch poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments in a selected English translation.
Final month, a federal choose ordered the removing of Ten Commandments posters in seven faculty districts, marking the second such injunction towards SB 10 because it took impact in September.
A North Texas faculty board has unanimously voted to decide out of adopting a brand new coverage that may put aside devoted time in the course of the faculty day for prayer and bible study, citing considerations that it might impose pointless restrictions on college students’ current constitutional rights.
The choice, made throughout a Denton Unbiased College District (ISD) board of trustees assembly on Dec. 9, is available in response to Senate Invoice 11 (SB 11), a bipartisan measure handed by the Texas Legislature requiring all faculty districts to vote on whether or not to implement such a coverage by March 2026. Districts that decline, like Denton ISD, positioned about 40 miles north of the Dallas-Fort Value metroplex, face no additional obligations underneath the legislation.
In a vote on the adoption of a decision based mostly on SB 11, the Denton ISD board decided that “current state and federal legislation … already protects college students’ rights to voluntarily pray, learn spiritual texts, specific spiritual viewpoints, and arrange spiritual teams.”
The board additionally decided such a transfer was “pointless and would impose further procedural necessities on rights that college students already totally possess.”
Denton ISD’s authorized counsel, Deron Robinson, suggested the board towards adoption, warning that the coverage’s strict pointers might restrict moderately than increase spiritual expression.
“The coverage could be very specific on the way it has to look, and it will really put very limiting components across the occasions a scholar might pray, might learn scripture,” Robinson stated in the course of the assembly.
He highlighted further constraints, similar to prohibiting prayer or bible study within the presence of scholars with out signed parental consent kinds. “It could basically deprive college students of a number of the rights they at present have, to the purpose the place, if I’m being actual sincere, whenever you put guidelines on one thing, there’s an assumption that you simply’re going to implement these guidelines,” Robinson stated. “I feel for those who had a scholar who had been to hope exterior of the designated time to hope, and also you had been to take difficulty with it and attempt to cease them, I don’t assume that may maintain as much as a constitutional problem.”
The vote makes Denton ISD the second faculty district in Texas to resolve towards implementing SB 11, which permits districts to designate time, similar to earlier than the varsity day or in particular areas, for prayer or studying spiritual texts, together with the Bible and different texts.
In October, Lytle ISD, positioned about 10 miles southwest of San Antonio, selected to not undertake SB 11 based mostly on the varsity board’s said “need to protect college students’ most flexibility to hope, learn scripture, or focus on religion naturally and voluntarily all through the day — simply because the legislation already permits.”
“Declining SB 11 doesn’t imply we’re towards prayer,” the district stated in an announcement. “It means we’re for particular person freedom and each scholar’s proper to reside out their beliefs with out restriction or separation.”
Underneath SB 11, taking part college students and employees are required to signal consent kinds acknowledging no objection to the exercise and waiving sure authorized rights, together with claims underneath the First Modification’s Institution Clause.
The legislation explicitly bans broadcasting prayers over loudspeakers and prohibits utilizing the interval as an alternative choice to educational time.
College students retain their constitutional rights to hope, meditate, research spiritual texts, or have interaction in voluntary spiritual actions exterior any designated interval, offered they don’t disrupt courses or faculty operations.
The laws is a part of broader efforts by Texas lawmakers to include extra spiritual components in public faculties. Senate Invoice 10 (SB 10), signed into legislation by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, required each public faculty classroom in Texas to prominently show a 16-by-20-inch poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments in a selected English translation.
Final month, a federal choose ordered the removing of Ten Commandments posters in seven faculty districts, marking the second such injunction towards SB 10 because it took impact in September.
A North Texas faculty board has unanimously voted to decide out of adopting a brand new coverage that may put aside devoted time in the course of the faculty day for prayer and bible study, citing considerations that it might impose pointless restrictions on college students’ current constitutional rights.
The choice, made throughout a Denton Unbiased College District (ISD) board of trustees assembly on Dec. 9, is available in response to Senate Invoice 11 (SB 11), a bipartisan measure handed by the Texas Legislature requiring all faculty districts to vote on whether or not to implement such a coverage by March 2026. Districts that decline, like Denton ISD, positioned about 40 miles north of the Dallas-Fort Value metroplex, face no additional obligations underneath the legislation.
In a vote on the adoption of a decision based mostly on SB 11, the Denton ISD board decided that “current state and federal legislation … already protects college students’ rights to voluntarily pray, learn spiritual texts, specific spiritual viewpoints, and arrange spiritual teams.”
The board additionally decided such a transfer was “pointless and would impose further procedural necessities on rights that college students already totally possess.”
Denton ISD’s authorized counsel, Deron Robinson, suggested the board towards adoption, warning that the coverage’s strict pointers might restrict moderately than increase spiritual expression.
“The coverage could be very specific on the way it has to look, and it will really put very limiting components across the occasions a scholar might pray, might learn scripture,” Robinson stated in the course of the assembly.
He highlighted further constraints, similar to prohibiting prayer or bible study within the presence of scholars with out signed parental consent kinds. “It could basically deprive college students of a number of the rights they at present have, to the purpose the place, if I’m being actual sincere, whenever you put guidelines on one thing, there’s an assumption that you simply’re going to implement these guidelines,” Robinson stated. “I feel for those who had a scholar who had been to hope exterior of the designated time to hope, and also you had been to take difficulty with it and attempt to cease them, I don’t assume that may maintain as much as a constitutional problem.”
The vote makes Denton ISD the second faculty district in Texas to resolve towards implementing SB 11, which permits districts to designate time, similar to earlier than the varsity day or in particular areas, for prayer or studying spiritual texts, together with the Bible and different texts.
In October, Lytle ISD, positioned about 10 miles southwest of San Antonio, selected to not undertake SB 11 based mostly on the varsity board’s said “need to protect college students’ most flexibility to hope, learn scripture, or focus on religion naturally and voluntarily all through the day — simply because the legislation already permits.”
“Declining SB 11 doesn’t imply we’re towards prayer,” the district stated in an announcement. “It means we’re for particular person freedom and each scholar’s proper to reside out their beliefs with out restriction or separation.”
Underneath SB 11, taking part college students and employees are required to signal consent kinds acknowledging no objection to the exercise and waiving sure authorized rights, together with claims underneath the First Modification’s Institution Clause.
The legislation explicitly bans broadcasting prayers over loudspeakers and prohibits utilizing the interval as an alternative choice to educational time.
College students retain their constitutional rights to hope, meditate, research spiritual texts, or have interaction in voluntary spiritual actions exterior any designated interval, offered they don’t disrupt courses or faculty operations.
The laws is a part of broader efforts by Texas lawmakers to include extra spiritual components in public faculties. Senate Invoice 10 (SB 10), signed into legislation by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, required each public faculty classroom in Texas to prominently show a 16-by-20-inch poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments in a selected English translation.
Final month, a federal choose ordered the removing of Ten Commandments posters in seven faculty districts, marking the second such injunction towards SB 10 because it took impact in September.
