When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill in April 2024 allowing public school districts to authorize volunteer chaplains to minister to children, he declared, “It’s going to make a positive impact on a lot of students throughout the State of Florida. … We got to give students this option.” Although for that impact to occur, school districts would have to actually implement the program, which they have apparently been hesitant to do. Seventeen months later, one school district says they’re the first to implement the program. And they did so by selecting an Assemblies of God minister who has unsuccessfully run as a Republican for Congress and who has a record of advocating for private Christian education and Christian Nationalism as well as pushing MAGA political conspiracies related to the Jan. 6 insurrection, COVID-19 vaccines, and more.
“I have to commend every one of you for going forward with this,” Rev. Jack Martin, the new chaplain for the Hernando School District, said during a school board meeting last week as he praised the members for establishing the program and selecting him. “I hope that we can set an example for the entire State of Florida.”
After his remarks, School Board Chair Shannon Rodriguez thanked Martin and called him “instrumental” in getting the program started in the mid-Florida county sitting on the Gulf Coast north of Tampa. Rodriguez led the committee that established the program, set its policies, and picked a chaplain. During a July meeting as they neared the end of a monthslong process, she said she did not think a single county in the state had yet implemented the program, adding, “We will be the first, so I’m very excited about that.” Martin last week also claimed on Facebook that he’s the first public school chaplain in Florida.
Since he is among the first — if not the first — chosen to serve as a public school chaplain in the Sunshine State after last year’s legislation, a closer look at Martin raises questions about the aims of the effort backed by DeSantis as well as lawmakers in numerous other states. And if Martin and Hernando County do “set an example” for others to follow, the background of both the chaplain and the county warrant more attention. So this issue of A Public Witness heads to the land of swamps and alligators to reconsider the nationwide push for public school chaplains.
Nationwide Effort
The recent legislative push for public school “chaplains” actually started in Texas as lawmakers passed such legislation in 2023. Since then, about half of the states in the country have considered similar bills, but most have been just for chaplains in name only since they don’t actually establish any standards for who can serve as a “chaplain.”
The 2023 law in the Lone Star State allows school districts to employ or name a volunteer “chaplain.” But there are no standards common for chaplains in other contexts, like educational requirements, experience, or certification. Someone chosen by the district merely must pass a background check and not be a sexual predator — which is a basic requirement for anyone working or volunteering in public schools. The Texas law also required all school boards to vote within six months on whether they would establish the program.
Once Gov. Greg Abbott signed the proposal into law, church-state separation advocates — including Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Interfaith Alliance, and Texas Impact — worked to encourage local school boards to reject the proposal. All 25 of the largest school districts voted against the “chaplaincy” program. And statewide, only 19% of districts voted to accept “chaplains.”
Even then, however, there wasn’t a rush to create such a position. A year later, data released by the Texas Education Agency showed that only one school had hired a “chaplain” (the data does not include whether anyone was chosen as a volunteer chaplain). The first paid public school chaplain in Texas under the new program was at a charter school in Arlington. That charter school is run by a group that was originally a Christian organization but amended its articles of incorporation to focus on education ahead of applying to run a state charter school (since, as Oklahoma recently learned, you cannot have a sectarian public charter school). Multiple of its campus locations today meet in churches and the logo for the school is a knight helmet that appears to have a cross on it. A few other schools in Texas have since also named a chaplain, like a rural Gulf Coast community where a Southern Baptist serving as a counselor is now also a chaplain and encourages students to pray.
Even as few Texas schools adopted the program, lawmakers in other states rushed to file similar bills. Last year, Florida and Louisiana passed such laws and Missouri adopted it this year (despite my brilliant arguments as I testified against the bill). Similar bills have also been introduced in more than 20 other states, with many likely to be refiled next year. And that’s not by accident.
A conservative Christian Nationalist group is behind the push for the creation of school “chaplaincy” programs. As Oklahoma state Rep. Mickey Dollens, a former public school teacher who also serves as the regional government affairs manager for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, explained earlier this month during the Religious Freedom in Public Schools Summit in Dallas, the so-called National School Chaplain Association is shaping the bills and producing false claims for lawmakers to parrot. Far from an interfaith chaplaincy focus, the NSCA calls itself “God’s representatives on school campuses” and its founder openly admits the program is a way to bring unconstitutional government prayer back into schools.
Unlike in Texas, lawmakers in Florida, Louisiana, and Missouri did not require school boards to vote on the program within six months, but all three also lacked any actual chaplaincy requirements. Florida’s law, which limited the program to just volunteers, did create a few protections missing from the other statutes, like requiring written parental consent for a student to meet with a “chaplain” and mandating that school districts explain the program and post its list of volunteer “chaplains.”
The ”School Chaplain Program” page of the Hernando School District’s website explains the program and parental rights. It also lists standards the school district created that go beyond the state’s minimum requirements, including that the chaplain must receive “an ecclesiastical endorsement” from their faith group, demonstrate they are “sensitive to religious pluralism and able to provide for the free exercise of religion by all students,” must report dangerous or criminal activities, and “may not proselytize for or disparage any religion, belief, lack of belief, or faith group.” The site also lists a sole chaplain: Rev. John Martin (though he goes by Jack at school board meetings). Although not required by state law or district policy, Martin does at least have experience as a chaplain as he’s served both the city and county fire departments in that capacity.
The school board chair did not respond to a comment request about the creation of the program, the selection of Martin, or whether they will add other chaplains to the list.
Preaching Christian Nationalism & Conspiracies
After speaking to the school board last week, Martin posted to the “Black Robe Regiment” Facebook group (for which he’s an administrator) that “the first public school chaplain in the State of Florida is a Black Robe Regiment pastor.” The BRR is a conservative Christian Nationalist effort to get “patriot pastors” engaged in the public square and impacting political elections with their preaching. BRR founder William Cook spoke at a “Jericho March” in Washington, D.C., which was part of the effort to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 election ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Cook has also spoken at the ReAwaken America Tour, a traveling carnival of election denialism, anti-vax conspiracies, and MAGA “prophets.”
The BRR name is drawn from the myth that many militant colonial pastors during the American Revolutionary War led their congregants to fight, pulling back their black clergy robes to reveal military uniforms. However, that story’s based on faulty history and the term doesn’t come from the colonial era but instead appears to have been made up by pseudo-historian David Barton. Yet, Martin posted a video earlier this month of him speaking — while in colonial garb. After asking how many people had heard of the BRR before, he added, “Not a whole lot of you. And that, in a way that goes back to what’s happened in our schools. They don’t teach the history of our nation the way it is.”
Martin has practiced what he preaches, even running for office as a Republican. In 2016, he launched a longshot congressional campaign to replace the retiring Rep. Rich Nugent. Ultimately, Rep. Dan Webster, who jumped into the race after his own district was redrawn to be more Democratic, won the primary. In 2022, Martin tried again in another district as they were redrawn following the 2020 census. He came in second with 9.2% of the vote, but far behind the 79.7% garnered by incumbent GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis. Martin said he would run again against Bilirakis in 2024, but ultimately passed on the race and endorsed his former opponent.
Beyond his own campaigns, Martin has been active in expressing his political opinions online, often pushing not just MAGA politics and anti-Democratic memes but also various political conspiracy theories. Like his assertion that the 2020 election was stolen and his repeated defenses of those arrested for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Truth be told the crime in the capitol that day was the ratification of the theft of the presidency of the United States, but they want you to watch the shiny coin,” Martin wrote about Jan. 6, adding that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be investigated and that it “seems some FBI were involved as well as Antifa.”
Since his selection as school chaplain, Martin posted a song titled “The Ballad of J6ers” with lyrics he wrote: “I am a man who loves my country. I was in D.C. that day along with my good buddies believing free speech worked that way. … It was a peaceful, patriotic protest. … Jan. 6 will be forever known as the Pelosi-Milley lies.” Along with clips from Jan. 6 and stock footage, the song also shows an AI-created video of Barack Obama being arrested during the singing of “maybe justice will be served and the bad folks are put in jail.”
Martin has another song lionizing Tina Peters, a former county clerk in Colorado who was convicted for allowing a fellow conspiracy theorist unauthorized access to voting machines after the 2020 election in an attempt to prove Trump won. The song also lifts up several other Trumpian figures who have faced charges, some of which Martin shows him with on screen — including Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.
In addition to election denialism and conspiracies about Jan. 6, Martin has also frequently posted comments downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic and attacking vaccines (including in a song suggesting the vaccines kill people). He mocked mask-wearing and repeatedly added he didn’t get a COVID vaccine but took ivermectin.
“When the numbers that die from the vaccine are final more will have died from the vaccine than from COVID. Something tells me that was the plan all along,” argued Martian, who added, “COVID vaccines for kids, the new American child abuse.”
Martin has also falsely claimed the man who shot Minnesota Democratic politicians in June was a Democrat (when the shooter was actually a conservative Christian) and argued that a “Deep State” plot was behind the assassination attempt last year when Trump was shot. Additionally, he insists the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and therefore recently argued that non-Christians should not be allowed to pray to open a session of Congress.
A former principal of a private Christian school whose wife homeschooled their children, one of his campaign goals during his 2022 congressional run was to end the U.S. Department of Education (something later called for in “Project 2025” and that the Trump administration is now attempting). He’s also encouraged parents to pull children out of public schools because of what he sees as a push for Critical Race Theory, diversity initiatives, and affirmation of LGBTQ+ students.
“Since parents are told to shut up at school board meetings, and school board’s all over seem to think that they, not the parents have a say in what is taught, perhaps if that can’t be reversed, it is time to abandon the public school system and go to faith-based, private, or home schooling,” Martin wrote. “And I can say now should this happen in large enough numbers, the public school will go the way of the wind, and perhaps that is what is necessary.”
Now, Martin has a public school badge to serve as the first school chaplain in the district (and perhaps the state). His role, however, won’t be the first time the Hernando County public schools are accused of pushing Christianity. In 2019, complaints led the district to stop the director of student services from leading staff members in prayer at official meetings and events. In 2021, a high school football coach sparked a complaint for allegedly leading students in prayer and baptizing students on school property during school hours.
The requirement of written parental notification in Florida’s school “chaplain” law could prevent future complaints in Hernando County when it comes to the new position. But as other states adopt such programs without that guardrail, we could quickly see First Amendment violations, especially depending on what type of “chaplain” a school district picks.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
Parents who think they are in favor of school chaplains should be aware of your closing sentence: "without that guardrail, we could quickly see First Amendment violations, especially depending on what type of “chaplain” a school district picks."
Are these positions paid or volunteer? It makes all the difference and it’s not clear here.
Otherwise, I see no substantive difference in this and Bible clubs, the Jewish Student Union, and Muslim equivalents.
What’s new here?