'There is no checks and balances': Florida faith leaders warn schools of new chaplain program

School districts have shown little interest in welcoming volunteer chaplains to serve in their facilities, an initiative recently permitted by the Legislature that, according to the ACLU, could create legal liability for schools and risk creating an environment of “religious coercion and indoctrination of students.”

Districts have no obligation to implement a chaplain program under the law Gov. Ron DeSantis signed this spring. It permits schools to host volunteer chaplains but does not require it.

For school boards and districts that may move to implement the program, religious and civil rights leaders have recommended approaches they believe would best protect children. The Council of Florida Churches plans to send school superintendents and school board members a letter this week raising concerns.

The letters are signed by Council President James Morris, Vice President Charles Myers, Secretary James Golden, and Director of Legislative Affairs Joe Parramore. The letter raises concerns about the lack of training required of volunteers leading to possible religious discrimination.

Risks

The volunteer program creates no requirements for who would qualify as a chaplain and who does not, aside from passing a background check. That worries civil rights organizations.

Representatives of the Florida Education Association and ACLU were not aware of any schools that had implemented the program. Of a dozen traditional public and charter schools the Phoenix reached out to, none indicated any plan to implement a volunteer chaplain program.

Miami-Dade schools discussed conducting a feasibility study in May, and according to a district spokesperson, that study is still underway.

The slow uptake makes sense to Kara Gross, senior policy counsel to the ACLU of Florida.

“It’s not surprising that we’re not seeing a lot of school districts want to take this up, because it creates significant risk of liability for school districts,” Gross said.

The ACLU and 33 other civil rights organizations wrote a letter opposing the bill after it passed the House.

“In relying on uncertified, unqualified clergy to perform student-support duties, such as counseling, schools risk students receiving inadequate or inappropriate care and could be held liable for this negligence,” the letter reads.

The ACLU issued another letter in July signed by more than 300 chaplains in opposition to chaplains in public schools nationwide.

“The primary role of chaplains is to provide pastoral or religious counseling to people in spiritual need,” Gross said. “And allowing them to assume an official position in a public school, even if it’s a voluntary position in a public school, creates an environment that is ripe for religious coercion and indoctrination of students.”

Golden, an ordained African Methodist Episcopal minister, former Manatee County School Board member, attorney, and co-founder of Pastors for Florida Children, said chaplains he has spoken with see a risk that inadequately trained volunteers could abuse the program.

“My primary focus is as a faith leader, and the harm that we are doing to the diversity that we have in our school systems, when we turn lose volunteer chaplains on our children and on their parents without any more of a guideline than, ‘Pass a level 2 background check from the state,’” Golden said.

“Anyone that would use this volunteer opportunity to generically provide spiritual comfort that takes advantage of that moment to engage in proselytizing would be abusing that system,” he added. “And the real problem that I have with that is that there is no checks and balances within the process to prevent that or to preclude that.”

It comes down to “scout’s honor” for volunteers, specifically those not trained chaplains, not to proselytize, he said.

“Such practices not only undermine the secular nature of public education but also create barriers to meaningful interfaith dialogue and cooperation among students from varied backgrounds,” the letter states.

Sen. Erin Grall, a Republican and sponsor of the bill, previously defended the language, saying the law was written to allow differently experienced volunteers to participate.

“There’s so many different ways in which somebody can train; so many different ways in which somebody can become qualified to be a chaplain,” Grall said. “What we didn’t want to do in this legislation was be so prescriptive so as to pick the right way to do it.”

While signing the law, DeSantis stressed that the program is “totally voluntary” for students and parents.

“No one’s being forced to do anything,” DeSantis said. “But to exclude religious groups from campus, that is discrimination. You’re basically saying that God has no place. That’s wrong. That’s not what our Founding Fathers intended.”

The ACLU letter argues that the law creates an opportunity for districts to violate the Establishment Clause, the part of the Constitution that prohibits government establishment or preference of a religion.

“In deciding which chaplains to hire or accept as volunteers, schools will inherently give preference to particular denominations, violating the ‘clearest command’ of the Establishment Clause. … Schools that do so and decline to accept chaplains of minority religions, even controversial ones, will place themselves at even greater risk of liability,” the ACLU letter reads.

For example, the Satanic Temple has offered to provide chaplains, although DeSantis argued districts could disallow that.

DeSantis sees the ACLU opposition as an attack on religious organizations.

“The First Amendment was enacted to ensure that people weren’t discriminated against on the basis of religion or the basis of their faith. So, I think it’s a bogus challenge. I do not think it’s gonna go anywhere,” DeSantis said during the signing ceremony.

Despite his experience as a faith leader, Golden said he would hesitate to participate in the program.

“I’m not a chaplain myself, and I have a master’s of divinity degree, and I would hesitate to go into a school to be a volunteer chaplain, because that school might have Jewish children there, they might have Muslim children there, they might have Hindu children there, and I have not been trained in any way to be able to meet the spiritual needs of those kinds of children,” Golden said.

The clergy members suggest alternatives “such as engaging more certified counselors, school psychiatrists, or other trained professionals with expertise in supporting students’ diverse spiritual and emotional needs.”

Background checks

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement , a level 2 background check is “a state and national fingerprint-based check and consideration of disqualifying offenses and applies to those employees designated by law as holding positions of responsibility or trust.”

That’s not a good enough screening process, Golden said.

“That’s the only requirement. So, whether you have a high school education or PhD, or whether your high school education is in quantum physics and your PhD is in acrobatic swimming, none of that matters — it’s just are you able to pass a level 2 background check.”

Interested in implementing?

Evaluating the faith demographic and parental demand of a school district could be an important first step for school districts interested in implementing a voluntary chaplain program, according to Golden.

“If I am a child of Christian background, Hindu background, Jewish background, Muslim background, and there are no volunteers in the school to help me with my particular spiritual orientation, then by definition I have been treated disparately,” Golden said. “There is a lack of protection in that school setting for my particular religious orientation.”

Conducting feasibility studies in each county could help provide due process and determine what communities might desire from a program, Golden said.

“I don’t understand how you put on the agenda, ‘We’re going to adopt a volunteer chaplaincy program,’ and let five school board members decide or seven school board members decide whether to do that without any input at all from the parents in the district, from the staff of the district,” he said.

Some 70% of Floridians identify as Christian, nearly a quarter are unaffiliated with any religion, and about 6% are non-Christian including Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu, according to Pew Research.

A month after DeSantis signed the law, the Florida Department of Education sent a memo to school superintendents listing the requirements to implement the program, including publishing lists of chaplains available, obtaining parental consent for a child to meet with a chaplain, and designating the services a volunteer may be assigned.

The Florida Council of Churches opposed the law since its introduction and sent an attendee to every committee meeting for the volunteer chaplain program, according to Parramore.

The faith leaders flagged “unintended consequences.”

“While the intention behind incorporating spiritual guidance and support into schools may stem from a genuine desire to nurture the holistic development of students, the deployment of untrained chaplains poses significant risks, particularly in terms of divisive exclusionary practices and as yet unknown, unexpected, and unintended consequences,” the letter states.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com . Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and X .

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