School security and literacy will be education priorities for lawmakers during the 2025 legislative session. There’s also a chance the K-12 school funding formula could be retooled and school voucher programs could be expanded.
However, it’s also likely that some Republicans will try to revive conservative “culture war” bills, including legislation about libraries, curriculum and school counselors.
Education advocates are expected to push for more state money for school counselors to help schools handle students’ mental health concerns. That could be addressed through changes to the funding formula, which currently pays for one school counselor per every 419 students. Advocates would like to lower the ratio to 1:250, which is what the American School Counselors Association recommends.
But the definition of who can serve as a school counselor could change if the GOP revives a bill from 2024 called the “School Chaplains Act.”
That legislation would allow schools to hire chaplains to do the work of school counselors. Schools could also ask chaplains to volunteer. The bill defines chaplain as “a clergy member who is trained to serve in a secular environment” but would exclude Satanists.
The bill stalled in the Senate last year but could come back to life in 2025. A similar law has been enacted in Texas.
Judy Fitzgerald is the executive director of the nonpartisan advocacy group Voices for Georgia’s Children. The organization doesn’t have a position on legislation such as the “School Chaplains Act,” but said the group recognizes the value of having trusted adults in school settings.
“For many students, a caring teacher, school chaplain or other school staff may be a vital lifeline for a youth seeking counseling or guidance,” Fitzgerald said. “We support healthy school cultures that are responsive to students seeking help. We also believe that youth with mental health needs should have ready access to trained and licensed clinicians who can appropriately diagnose individual needs and ensure an individualized treatment plan.”
Georgia Republicans are also expected to reintroduce a bill that would repeal protections for public school librarians for distributing material considered “harmful to minors.” The material is defined by law, which currently has an exemption for librarians.
A measure introduced last year would have lifted that exemption. Critics panned the legislation because it says librarians could be prosecuted for distributing “harmful” material. But bill sponsor Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, said the law would apply to those who seek to harm minors.
“This bill recognizes that for my three children, who attend a public elementary school, that there is nothing that they should have access to in their school library … that they would not have access to in a friend’s home on a Saturday, at a soccer game on a Sunday or anywhere else,” he said.
States including Arkansas, Indiana and Tennessee have passed similar bills. In Arkansas, for example, school librarians and teachers can be fined $10,000 or could be imprisoned for up to six years for distributing “obscene or harmful” material. However, a federal judge recently struck down parts of the law.
Another bill likely to reappear in Georgia would require local boards of education to give parents the option to receive email notifications whenever their child checks out books or other items from the school media center.
Lawmakers could also resuscitate a bill that called for a rating system for library books. The measure would create a category for “restricted” material, which would include sexually explicit content that’s not part of the required curriculum.
The Georgia General Assembly begins its legislative session next week. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is running articles every day this week previewing some of the action. Stick with the AJC throughout the session for the most comprehensive coverage in the state.
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