Texas will allow students to receive religious instruction

Texas has passed a law allowing students to receive religious instruction off-campus during the school day for a limited time, which supporters are characterizing as a victory for parental rights. 

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 1049 into law Friday. The measure, which passed the Republican-controlled Texas Senate in a 30-1 vote and the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives in a 123-12 vote,  goes into effect on Sept. 1. It received bipartisan support, with only one Senate Democrat and 12 House Democrats opposing it. 

The legislation adds a new section to state law governing what constitutes an excused absence from school under state law. Texas schools are now required to excuse students “from attending school to attend a released time course for at least one but not more than five hours per week.”

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The bill defines a “released time course” as “a course in religious instruction offered by a private entity.”

The measure requires all public school districts and charter schools in the state to enact policies allowing students to attend religious instruction during the school day by Jan. 1. 

Additional provisions in the measure require schools to secure written consent from parents before approving requests for released time and ensure that the entity offering religious courses off-campus keeps attendance records while stressing that transportation to such instruction is to be provided by parents and/or the entity that is providing the instruction. 

Under the legislation, the entity providing the off-campus religious instruction assumes liability for students when the class is taking place. The measure also prohibits permitting the use of school facilities for religious instruction during the school day and using “district or school funds” to “facilitate the provision of a released time course.” 

The conservative legal nonprofit organization Alliance Defending Freedom reacted favorably to Abbott’s approval of Senate Bill 1049.

“Parents have the right and responsibility to guide the upbringing and education of their children,” said ADF Senior Counsel Greg Chafuen in a statement published Sunday. 

“The government should not stop families from raising their children in the family’s faith. SB 1049 respects parents’ educational decisions, allowing public school children to be briefly excused from school to receive free, off-campus religious instruction taught by private charitable organizations,” he added.

Although he did not name the decision directly, Chafuen noted that allowing released time for religious instruction during the school day is consistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

The justices ruled in the 1952 caseZorach v. Clauson that laws permitting students to receive instruction during the school day are consistent with “the best of our traditions” and determined that they did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

Texas is not the only state to enact legislation allowing students to attend religious instruction off-campus during the school day in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a similar measure into law. Other states with laws allowing students to receive religious instruction during the school day include Ohio and Oklahoma. 

Released time laws have drawn scrutiny from secular legal advocacy organizations like the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who argue that such programs cut into “valuable school hours” and students who don’t participate are left to do busy work. 

Following the passage of Ohio’s release-time law in 2023, FFRF said it “received several complaints from families in different school districts alleging that non-attending students were given busy work, or no work at all, as a consequence of staying behind during released time classes.”