Texas Republicans passed a bill creating prayer time at school. 99% of districts rejected it.

Only 15 out of roughly 1,200 school districts adopted SB 11, exposing the manufactured crisis behind the Christian Nationalist push

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One of the many, many pro-Christianity bills passed in Texas last year was Senate Bill 11, which allowed public school districts to set aside non-instructional time during the day for students and staffers to pray or read their religious books. (I recently wrote about a similar bill proposed in Tennessee.)

It was an idiotic Christian Nationalist bill because, of course, everyone can already pray in school whenever the hell they want! They can already read holy books when they’re not in class! This bill solved problems that didn’t exist. The only people dumb enough to think otherwise are the sort of people gullible enough to fall for whatever lies David Barton tells them. Which is why practically every Republican in the Texas legislature voted for it.

It didn’t help that scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton advocated for the bill by making it very clear that this was all about promoting Christianity, not any of those other heretical faiths.

“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Twisted, radical liberals want to erase Truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon, and erode the moral fabric of our society. Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”

He then encouraged children to start their day with “the Lord’s Prayer, as taught by Jesus Christ” (which is especially absurd when you consider all the decidedly “un-Christian” things he’s been accused of).

But this bill didn’t just reinforce what was already allowed. It meant prayer periods could be organized by school districts before or after school. Staffers could participate in or lead the prayers. They could even encourage students to pray. Students could feel coerced to participate. Students who didn’t submit a permission slip could have been isolated and excluded by their peers.

It created far more problems than it solved.

The bill passed anyway. It became a law and went into effect on September 1, 2025.

But the bill also included one specific provision that school boards had to comply with: Within six months, they all had to vote on whether or not to set aside this religious time.

You can see why Republicans liked that provision: It was a way to force school boards to vote on an issue that would surely matter to conservative Christians. If board members voted against it, they were effectively risking their own seats the next time they were up for re-election. Despite that threat, over 160 religious leaders in the state urged school boards to vote against this option.

Well, six months later would be March 1… which means we now know how many of the roughly 1,200 Texas public school districts have voted to adopt this pro-Christian time block.

The answer?

15.

That’s it.

And, as the Texas Tribune explains, one of the bill’s co-sponsors is now trying to act like that’s just fine.

Texas State Rep. David Spiller (screenshot via YouTube)

… one of the key lawmakers who guided the bill through the Legislature has identified only 15 school districts that have opted into the prayer period. Many other urban, suburban and rural districts voted against it.

“I respect their opinion. They know their communities,” said Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro. “That’s not to say that they can’t come back and revisit it. But this is not a mandate. I’ve said very clearly from the start, this is not a mandate bill. The only thing that’s mandated is if they consider it. They don’t have to adopt it.”

You know what 15 districts means in this case? It means practically no one wants to play this Republican game. They didn’t want to deal with parental consent forms (which could have created legal problems because they were waiving their right to sue). They didn’t want to deal with a requirement that the voluntary prayer time couldn’t occur in the vicinity of someone who didn’t submit a signed permission slip. They didn’t want to encourage this sort of faith-based rule-making from their lawmakers.

“In reality, there was no need for it,” said Alex Kotara, vice president of the Karnes City school district board, which is located in a conservative town southeast of San Antonio.

“It passes the buck to local school districts to make that decision, but it also does it in a way that requires them to also opt out — not just opt in — which then, from an elected official standpoint, puts you in a position where, when they boil down a convoluted, kind of contradictory bill to a sound bite, it’s going to be that we did not allow prayer in school,” Kotara said.

He nailed the problem. The bill was pointless to begin with, but everyone knew a refusal to adopt it would be spun by right-wing extremists to suggest they’re anti-prayer or anti-Christianity, even though that’s not true. But when this many school districts refuse to play along, including in conservative areas, it’s virtually impossible to make that argument.

And even in one of the districts where the board voted in favor of the prayer period, one board member said it was all for show:

The Aledo school district in North Texas opted in, but board members didn’t necessarily vote in favor of the period because they felt it expanded students’ rights, said school board President Forrest Collins.

“Basically, the state Legislature forced us to vote on something schools already support, and our vote was really just to reaffirm the constitutional rights of students,” Collins said. “I felt like, personally, the bill was kind of a waste of time.”

No shit. Of course it was a waste of time. That’s what the church/state separation crowd has been saying this whole time. But have fun dealing with the permission slips and avoiding potential lawsuits, I guess.

Other school districts rejected the option because they felt it wasn’t their role to dictate when and how kids pray, or simply because they didn’t want to alter their bell schedules.

Much like the gerrymandering, the Republican strategy backfired because they didn’t think it through. School boards understood that this was never about protecting religious freedom. It was about conservatives manufacturing a grievance and trying to create headlines that could be weaponized against them.

Now the only headline is that even deeply conservative districts are declining to opt in. We’re not talking about anti-Christian radicals. We’re talking about school board members who understand that their role isn’t to serve as a rubber stamp for conservative politicians.

If there were truly a desperate need for protected prayer time in public schools, you would not see a nearly 99% rejection rate.

None of this will stop Republicans from trying to shove religion into public schools but maybe it gives them a moment of pause before they decide which battle to fight next. This one was clearly a waste of time.

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