Volunteer chaplains are not trained counselors, and should not serve that role in Ohio’s public schools [COMMENTARY]

Rabbis, pastors, priests, imams, gurus and other spiritual leaders play a prominent role in many of our lives. They officiate at our liturgies, offer advice and guidance and at times provide pastoral counseling for our spiritual, emotional, and perhaps even psychological needs. 

Recently, legislators in the Ohio House of Representatives introduced House Bill (HB) 240, which would allow unlicensed and uncertified chaplains to serve in a role equivalent to school counselors in Ohio public schools.

New Ohio bill would allow unlicensed chaplains to work in public schools

Without a doubt, more school counselors are needed in Ohio. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of one school counselor for every 250 students. As of 2021 (the latest data available), Ohio had one school counselor for every 400 students. HB240 proposes to remedy this problem by hiring or installing volunteer chaplains to provide student services with school counselors, but not independent of them.

HB 240’s proposal raises three important questions that the bill does not answer. First, who are these chaplains? The education of most Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant Christian clergy as well as most rabbis involves a graduate degree with time spent in clinical and pastoral counseling environments, yet most clergy are trained as helpers, not clinical counselors. Some clergy are themselves well-meaning volunteers with depth of scriptural study, but little or no pastoral experience. While deeply rooted in their own traditions, most clergy are not skilled in other traditions. If the chaplains are drawn from particular congregations, denominations, and religions, how well will they be able to support students of diverse faiths, particularly religious minorities?

Second, what supervision will the chaplains receive, and will there be limits on the information they can offer? HB240 states that each chaplain will need to clear a criminal background check and allows each district or school to create other requirements but offers no further guidance about what a chaplain could or could not say to a student. Could the chaplain proselytize? Could the chaplain try to attract students to their congregation? What about trying to convert students to their religion?

Third, would the chaplains be required to utilize and promote evidence-based interventions? Would they be required to treat sexual orientation and gender identity as identities and not pathologies? If the chaplains received little supervision relative to what they can tell students, a non-affirming chaplain could attempt to “change” a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity through conversion “therapy” and other harmful, pseudoscientific means.

Placing chaplains in schools without substantive requirements and regulations presents several major problems, and perhaps the greatest is about faith itself. To this point, I’ve been careful to use interfaith language, but logic tells us that in Ohio the majority of the chaplains would be Christian and traditional.

Deploying traditional Christian chaplains into schools invites potential abuse of non-Christian students, of LGBTQ+ students, and even of more progressive Christian students. Christianity continues to be weaponized in the United States as it joins its misanthropic bedfellows, white supremacy and nationalism.

While HB240 may, in some sense, seek to resolve the shortage of school counselors in Ohio, it does so at the risk of students. The bill promotes an environment where white Christian nationalism can be promoted from within schools and taught to students packaged as counseling.

Whatever the intent of the bill’s author and sponsors, HB 240 and bills like it that offer underdeveloped and misguided solutions to real problems need to be discussed even more. Ohioans cannot allow HB 240 to slip through the proverbial cracks and be passed because our attention has been drawn away by fear-mongering and garbage bills meant to stir up controversy and create problems to solve.

While we organize to stop those bills, we must also stop HB 240. 🔥

Ignite Action

• Do you know your state legislator? Go HERE to enter your address to find out who represents you. Then contact them. And let them know your thoughts on HB 240.