By

Ballotpedia staff

Welcome to Hall Pass, the newsletter that keeps you plugged into the conversations driving school board politics and education policy. 

In today’s edition, you’ll find:

  • On the issues: The debate over school chaplains—part 2  
  • School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
  • California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signs bill prohibiting schools from adopting transgender parental notification policies 
  • Extracurricular: education news and numbers from around the web
  • Candidate Connection survey

Reply to this email to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over school chaplains—part 2

In this section, we curate reporting, analysis, and commentary on the issues school board members deliberate when they set out to offer the best education possible in their district. Missed an issue? Click here to see the previous education debates we’ve covered.

A previous edition of this newsletter covered debates over public school chaplains and whether they benefit students. In this edition, we will look at contrasting perspectives on whether school chaplains are constitutional.

Zeeshan Aleem writes that laws allowing districts to recruit volunteer chaplains for student counseling would create opportunities for preaching, violating the First Amendment. He says the Establishment Clause requires a wall between church and state and that parental consent requirements for students interacting with chaplains are insufficient safeguards.

Jorge Gomez writes that the First Amendment does not prohibit all religious expression in the public sphere. Gomez says chaplaincy laws don’t coerce or seek to persuade students to participate in religious practices and so do not violate the Establishment Clause. 

The Republican agenda to install religious chaplains in schools is appalling | Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC

“Public schools inviting chaplains onto campus raises obvious First Amendment questions. School districts will be picking and choosing religious figures to come onto campus to provide children with services that would typically be carried out by a school counselor — guidance on issues such as academics, relationships, mental health, trouble at home, bullying and future career ideas. But instead of drawing from education and training specific to counseling young people, chaplains would be drawing from their spiritual beliefs. At the bare minimum, this means schools would be priming students to think of specific religions as an educational resource. And it would effectively provide cover for chaplains to evangelize on behalf of their faith and indoctrinate young, impressionable children seeking help. Chaplains infiltrating public schools would constitute state-sponsored promotion of religion, in violation of the First Amendment’s commitments to a secular state. … [E]ven parental consent is an inadequate safeguard, in part because the scarcity of school counselors and their simultaneous replacement with chaplains could compel parents to allow their children to see chaplains out of lack of a practical alternative. Activists from dozens of civil rights organizations and faith groups, as well as individual chaplains, have rallied against these bills in a number of states out of concern that they violate the First Amendment.”

Volunteer Chaplains in Public Schools Are Constitutional—and Beneficial for Students | Jorge Gomez, First Liberty

“[C]ourts have upheld many kinds of government chaplaincies in a wide variety of circumstances, including the military, prisons, hospitals and legislative bodies. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause does not ‘compel the government to purge from the public sphere’ anything an objective observer could reasonably infer endorses or ‘partakes of the religious.’ Last year, in our case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court overruled a 50-year precedent known as Lemon v. Kurtzman, which wrongly held that government action that lacks a secular purpose, advances religion, or entangles the government with religion violated the Establishment Clause. Cases grounded in Lemon’s framework may no longer be controlling, as the Supreme Court overturned Lemon and with it, decades of subsequent precedents that came from that decision. … [W]e need to be crystal clear: schools may not coerce students to engage in religious exercise. Therefore, chaplain services should be strictly voluntary for students to use. We should, however, point out that in Kennedy, the Supreme Court rejected the notion that the mere presence of religious activity is somehow coercive. Instead, the Court found no coercion ‘where there is no evidence anyone sought to persuade or force students to participate.’”

School board update: filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications

This year, Ballotpedia will cover elections for over 11,000 school board seats across more than 30 states. We’re expanding our coverage each year with our eye on the country’s more 80,000 school board seats.  

Upcoming school board elections

Tennessee 

On Aug. 1, Ballotpedia will cover school board elections in Tennessee in the following districts. 

Except for Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the largest district in Tennessee, the districts on the list above held partisan primaries on March 5. School board elections in the Memphis-Shelby County Schools district, however, are nonpartisan. 

Tennessee is one of five states—including Rhode Island, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia—where state law effectively provides for partisan and nonpartisan elections depending on the school district. In four states, school board candidates run in partisan elections only. More than 90% of school boards are nonpartisan.

Minnesota

Ballotpedia will cover the nonpartisan primary for Minneapolis Board of Education At-large on Aug. 13 in Minnesota. Three candidates are running in the election—incumbent Kim Ellison, Elena Condos, and Shayla Owodunni. Ellison was first elected in 2012.

The two candidates who receive the most votes will advance to the Nov. 5 general election.

Minneapolis Public Schools is the third-largest in Minnesota, with an estimated enrollment of around 29,000 students. 

Oklahoma

Ballotpedia will cover special general election runoffs in Oklahoma on Aug. 27 for a seat on the Sequoyah Public Schools school board. Greg Perry and Lyndsey Young are running in the election. Perry and Young ran in the April 2 special general election, but a lawsuit over voting irregularities resulted in a new election date. Preliminary vote tallies showed Perry with 225 votes to Young’s 222.

The Rogers County Election Board found instances of irregular votes in three precincts. For example, one person was found to have voted twice. The Rogers County Election Board later found that in two of the instances, irregular voting did not in fact occur, but the voters’ registrations were incorrect. 

Sequoyah Public Schools is located northeast of Tulsa and has an estimated student population of 1,300 students. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signs bill that prohibits schools from adopting transgender parental notification policies 

On July 15, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the SAFETY Act, prohibiting K-12 pub schools from requiring employees to notify parents when students identify as a different gender than at birth. The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2025, is the first of its kind in the country. At least seven states have passed laws since 2022 that run in the opposite direction—requiring school employees to notify parents when students change their gender identity. 

Since Newsom signed the SAFETY Act, a group of parents with students in the California public school system have sued the state, arguing the law violates the U.S. Constitution. 

In previous editions of Hall Pass, we’ve covered debates over whether school officials and teachers should notify parents if their child is socially transitioning their gender identity (such as using different pronouns or names). Click here and here to see those contrasting perspectives. 

Here’s what to know about the SAFETY Act.

Here’s what the law says. The Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act, or Assembly Bill 1955, states: “This bill would prohibit school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and the state special schools, and a member of the governing board or body of those educational entities, from enacting or enforcing any policy, rule, or administrative regulation that requires an employee or a contractor to disclose any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent unless otherwise required by law, as provided.”

The law also directs the California Department of Education to develop or update resources “for the support of parents, guardians, and families of LGBTQ pupils and strategies to increase support for LGBTQ pupils, as specified.”

Here’s who supported the law. State Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D) and Assemblymember Chris Ward (D) introduced the bill in January. Eggman said: “The SAFETY Act is a critical piece of legislation that seeks to protect everyone on school campuses, especially LGBTQ+ students. When and how a person comes out is a conversation that should be reserved for a student and a parent, not arbitrarily forced on unsuspecting youth by a school administration.” 

The California state Assembly passed the bill 61-16 along party lines on June 27. The California Senate passed the bill 29-8 on July 15, also along party lines. Democrats have a 62-17 majority in the Assembly and a 32-8 majority in the Senate. 

Republican lawmakers opposed the bill. Assemblymember James Gallagher (R) said: “No matter how much Democrats dislike it, the fact is parents have a right to be involved in their kids’ education. It’s unbelievable that anyone would think that teachers can keep secrets from parents, but it’s flat-out disgusting that Democrats are trying to mandate that schools keep parents in the dark.”

The Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit organization that says it “seeks to protect economic liberty, private property rights, free speech, and other fundamental rights,” sued the state on July 16. The organization filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Chino Valley Unified School District and a group of parents from around the state with children enrolled in public schools. 

The group alleges the SAFETY Act violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments: “School officials do not have the right to keep secrets from parents, but parents do have a constitutional right to know what their minor children are doing at school. Parents are the legal guardians of their children, not Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta, or Superintendent Thurmond.”

Debates over district-level parental notification policies have been playing out in California school board meetings and courtrooms since 2022. Judges have issued conflicting rulings in lawsuits over the policies. 

In May 2023, for example, two Escondido Union School District teachers sued the district over its policy prohibiting staff from discussing students’ transgender identity without their permission. In September 2023, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California Judge Roger Benitez ruled in favor of the teachers: “[The policy] harms plaintiffs who are compelled to violate the parent’s rights by forcing plaintiffs to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students.”

President George W. Bush (R) nominated Benitez to the Southern District court in 2003. 

Around the same time, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California Judge John Mendez dismissed a parent’s challenge to the Chico Unified School District’s policy of not disclosing a student’s gender identity to parents. Mendez, whom Bush appointed to the court in 2007, wrote school officials “demonstrated a legitimate state interest in creating a zone of protection for transgender students and those questioning their gender identity from adverse hostile reactions, including, but not limited to, domestic abuse and bullying.” 

Between July 2023 and October 2023, at least seven districts adopted parental notification policies:

Seven states have passed laws that require school employees to notify parents if students change their gender identity.

Extracurricular: education news and numbers from around the web

This section contains links to recent education-related articles from around the internet. If you know of a story we should be reading, reply to this email to share it with us! 

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at survey responses from two candidates running in Aug. 1 elections for Williamson County Schools school board, in Tennessee. Williamson County Schools is the fifth-largest district in Tennessee, with an estimated enrollment of around 42,000 students. 

Elmer Mobley (D) and Tony Bostic (R) are running in the general election to represent District 1. Mobley and Bostic were both unopposed in the March 5 Democratic and Republican primaries. Mobley completed the survey. 

Dennis Driggers (R) and Diane Cochran (D) are running in the general election to represent District 3. Cochran ran unopposed in her primary. Driggers defeated PJ Mezera 64%-36% in the Republican primary. Driggers completed the survey. 

Here’s how Mobley answered the question, “What existing district policies would you like to change, or what new policies would you like to implement?”

“Specifically for District One, I have concerns with the implications of the new 3rd Grade Retention law and how it will affect our youngest students. Looking at the statewide data from test results, 60% of third graders statewide fell below the threshold last year. That is going to impact a lot of students and their families in our district.

I believe the intention is good but placing so much on TCAP and not on all of the student’s performance to make a significant decision like this is short-sighted. We should be empowering teachers and school administrators who know their students to take the lead on making these determinations. Testing should be a part of that process but not the primary factor.”

Click here to read the rest of Mobley’s responses. 

Here’s how Driggers answered the question, “What existing district policies would you like to change, or what new policies would you like to implement?”

“The School District needs to finalize the book review and selection process.”

Click here to read the rest of Driggers’ responses. 

If you’re a school board candidate or incumbent, click here to take the survey. If you’re not running for school board, but there is an election in your community this year, share the link with the candidates and urge them to take the survey!