Dallas ISD is reportedly poised to disallow chaplains from providing counseling services to students and staff in the district.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a bill allowing chaplains to serve as counselors in public schools was passed by the Texas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott. The bill also requires all public school systems to take a vote on the record as to whether they will allow chaplains to serve as counselors or not.
“Chaplains would be huge for the mental health of our teachers just having a safe person to talk with or pray with or someone just to listen to them,” said Julie Pickren, a State Board of Education member and supporter of the chaplain bill. “It’s a huge benefit to our teachers [and] our children.”
Still, not everyone seems to agree.
Dallas ISD has drafted a resolution that will likely be taken up at a school board meeting on October 19.
“BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Trustees of the Dallas Independent School District hereby: Does not permit a District campus to employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain to provide support, services, and programs for students, at this time,” reads the resolution.
Dallas ISD would not be the first North Texas school system to ban chaplains from serving as counselors. McKinney ISD voted in late September to bar them.
“We need to have professional counselors counseling children,” said McKinney ISD Board Vice President Amy Dankel, according to Community Impact. “Just like we need professional teachers teaching to the children [and] just like we need professional librarians filling the library with books. That’s what needs to happen.”
McKinney ISD is one of the better-performing school systems in North Texas, clocking a 97.2% on-time graduation rate for the 2021-2022 school year. In comparison, almost 20% of Dallas ISD’s graduating Class of 2022 did not earn a diploma in four years despite the hard work of its talented educators.
