SB11

Optional prayer policy, required board vote

SB11 lets a school district or an open-enrollment charter school not operated by or affiliated with a religious organization adopt a daily opportunity for students and employees to pray and read the Bible or another religious text. Adoption requires a recorded board vote on the exact resolution specified in the law. If adopted, the policy must cover every campus. The law requires each district and open-enrollment charter governing board to take a recorded vote within six months after the act’s effective date; it does not require a yes vote. Final law, Education Code 25.0823(a)–(a-1) and Section 3.

The governor signed the bill June 20, 2025. It took effect September 1, 2025 and applies beginning with the 2025–26 school year. Its six-month voting deadline therefore falls on March 1, 2026. This explanation describes the statute, not whether any individual board met that deadline or adopted a policy. official history; Final law, Sections 3–5.

Participation requires consent—and a waiver

An employee, or a student’s parent or guardian, must submit a signed consent form before that person may participate. The form must acknowledge a choice whether to participate, state no objection to participating in or hearing the prayers/readings, and expressly waive claims under state or federal law arising from adoption of the policy, including Establishment Clause claims. The statutory waiver releases the district or school and its employees from those claims. Describing the required waiver is not a finding that every possible claim is legally waivable or that courts have upheld every application. Final law, Section 25.0823(b)(1).

Consent can be revoked by telling the appropriate school administrator. Participation then stops unless a new consent form is submitted. The statute says the waiver remains binding after consent is revoked; revoking participation does not, in the statute’s terms, undo the waiver already signed. That distinction matters to families and employees considering the form. Final law, Section 25.0823(c).

Rules protecting nonparticipants

The policy must prohibit broadcasting the prayer or reading over a public-address system and must not substitute it for instructional time. It must ensure the activity is not in the physical presence or hearing of someone who lacks consent or has revoked it, or conducted in another way that causes constitutionally recognized injury to that person. The law allows arrangements such as before-school periods, rooms where everyone has consented, an entire consenting campus, or another method recommended by the attorney general or the school’s legal counsel. These arrangements remain subject to the protections; the law does not require all students to attend a prayer period. Final law, Section 25.0823(b)(2)–(3) and (d).

On the governing board’s request, the attorney general must provide compliance advice, a model consent form and a defense against a lawsuit arising from adoption of the policy. If the attorney general represents the school, the state is responsible for expenses, costs, judgments or settlements arising from that representation, and the attorney general may settle. The act does not make the state liable for such claims against a school not represented by the attorney general. Final law, Section 25.0823(e)–(f).

The new section does not itself prohibit prayer or religious reading at other times, whether or not the school adopts this program. Separately, SB11 removes “encourage” from the existing prohibition against requiring, encouraging or coercing a student to engage in or refrain from individual, voluntary, silent prayer or meditation. It leaves the ban on requiring or coercing that activity and the protection for nondisruptive individual prayer in place. Removing one statutory word is not a blanket override of constitutional limits. Final law, Section 25.0823(g) and Section 2.