LEESBURG — The devil is in the details when it comes to a new school chaplains policy promoted by the Florida Department of Education this past week.
It's still undetermined whether chaplains will be enlisted in Lake County Schools.
The model policy from the state's Department of Education, if used by school districts, comes with a set of standards for chaplains.
"We received a model policy from the FLDOE just yesterday," Lake County Schools spokesperson Sherri Owens said in an Aug. 21 email to the Daily Commercial.
"Staff has not yet had an opportunity to review it," she added. "Neither has the School Board or our attorney."
The DOE policy guidelines refer to the new resource in Florida education as the Volunteer School Chaplain Program, created to provide support, services and programs to students such as "religiously affiliated clubs, building resiliency skills and offering spiritual guidance."
To participate, chaplains must meet certain higher education degree requirements and have "current, official membership in a group that is itself officially part of a religion and meets in-person at least monthly at a location within the geographical boundaries of the school district."
The change in school administration procedure stems from a bill signed into law earlier this year. HB 931 allows volunteer chaplains to provide support services for public K-12 students.
The law requires parental consent before a student meets with a chaplain, and students must undergo a background check.
Questions about "What if's," inclusion, discrimination and implementation have arisen. Detractors are decrying it as breaching the weakening separation of church and state.
Proponents are celebrating it as progress in the expression of freedom of religion.
The Rev. Joe Parramore, legislative director of the Council of Florida Churches Inc., told the Tallahassee Democrat that the DOE guidelines' language is not "fully inclusive."
"In rural Florida, it is common for families to travel beyond their school district for spiritual care and guidance. Excluding these families from programs like the Chaplaincy program is inherently exclusionary," Parramore said in a statement.
His council has opposed the measure.
Even the Temple of Satan got in on the action as the bill gathered momentum last spring, proposing the possibility to send a cleric from their house of worship.
The group doesn't actually worship Satan but is well known for its advocacy for the First Amendment and religious freedom .
How the chaplain conversation gained traction
Ocala Republican state Rep. Stan McClain filed the bill in December. His government bio describes him as Christian and a member of several civic organizations, including Florida Family Action, an organization whose legislative agenda leans far right with language promoting anti-abortion, trans rights and same-sex marriage legislation.
Florida Reps. Christopher Benjamin, D-Miami Gardens, and Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, as well as a contingent of ministers and parents, spoke against the introduction of chaplains into public schools.
Other states such as Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma have begun making way for chaplain programs. “It’s not a promotion of a religion,” Oklahoma Rep. Danny Williams told local news station Fox25 March 6 . “It’s a promotion of good, quality life.”
Some states didn't take too favorably, including states in the "Bible Belt." Bills proposed in Alabama, Nebraska, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Utah, Missouri and Pennsylvania have died on legislative floors.
Marion County Schools currently has plans to install chaplains . (The city of Ocala, Marion's county seat, lost a separation-of-church-and-state case in federal court earlier this year. The lawsuit stemmed from a prayer vigil held in the town square. The ruling is on appeal .)
The Osceola County School Board paused a plan for a chaplain program after receiving First Amendment concerns and interest from the mock Satanic temple, but is still considering the DOE-sanctioned chaplains.
What exactly is a chaplain?
If you look up chaplain, there isn't really one definition. The most recent version of HB 931 bill cites Encyclopedia Brittanica:
"In modern usage the term chaplain is not confined to any particular church or denomination," the bill says. "Clergy and ministers appointed to a variety of institutions and corporate bodies—such as cemeteries, prisons, hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, embassies, legations, and armed forces—usually are called chaplains."
Though no denomination has been favored, some language with regard to "screening" in the bill brings into question if non-Christian, or smaller Christian religious groups such as Quakers will be accepted.
The legislation mandates that districts publish a list of the chaplains on its website and for school principals to inform parents about them.
Criticisms of the new law
Christianity is not explicitly mentioned in the bill, but critics argue that the motivation is more implicit, embedded in contextual messaging the way "separate but equal" held sway to Jim Crow law proponents vs. what became universally known as segregation.
Kara Gross, legislative director of the ACLU of Florida, responded to the DOE's model policy by asserting that "freedom of religion means that parents and faith communities — not government officials — have the right to direct their children’s religious education and development."
Gross adds: "The government-proposed ‘model policy’ further demonstrates that this law seeks to advance certain religious viewpoints that are favored by the governor in our public schools and to exclude other religious viewpoints that the governor disfavors."
More than 100 chaplains voiced their dissent in a letter to the Texas school boards .
In Tennessee, Datren Williams, a school board member for 12 years, pushed for no chaplains despite his faith as a devout Christian. He told the Washington Post that had been shaped both by experiencing being in the majority, as a Southern Baptist growing up in Tennessee, and being in the minority, as a Black man.
A push for chaplains, who would most likely be Christian, he said, was an affront to his faith, which he said calls for the strong to support the weaker.
“When you get an LGBT chaplain showing up in school, you all will be up here in outrage!” he piped up during a hearing.
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This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: God in the classroom? Lake school board has yet to accept or deny new chaplain policy
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