On the surface, Sen. Phil King of Weatherford's bill appears to be another unfunded education mandate passed by the Texas Legislature that imposes the burden of compliance on districts.
But one line in Senate Bill 10, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law this past June, states that school districts could avoid funding the posters themselves by accepting the offers of private donors. If a private donor supplies posters that fit the guidelines laid out by the state, any district with classrooms still without the Ten Commandments already hanging up is not allowed to decline.
Texas school districts have just three weeks to ensure that their thousands of classrooms have been fitted with compliant posters, but in reporting this story, the Observer found that few districts are willing to discuss where their posters are coming from or what their plans are to ensure every classroom satisfies SB 10.
Dallas ISD, Richardson ISD and Southlake Carroll ISD declined to comment when asked where their posters would come from. A vague statement from DeSoto ISD said the district is “moving forward with implementation” of SB 10 and “working with vendors” to do so.
A spokesperson for Allen ISD told the Observer that “an individual” had contacted the district about a donation, but that, as of Aug. 8, no posters had been received. On Tuesday afternoon, the conservative Christian group Citizens Defending Freedom posted to X that 1,350 Ten Commandments posters had been delivered to the district.
WFAA reports that Frisco ISD spent $1,800 on printing its posters rather than relying on donations.
At an Arlington ISD school board meeting on Aug. 7, Cheryl Bean, a former Republican candidate for Texas House District 97 (who is now running for the District 94 seat), announced her campaign would supply the district’s 75 schools with Ten Commandments posters.
“If a Ten Commandments sign is donated to a school, they get to put it up. I’ve already purchased these. I know you may be getting other offers, but I’m willing to fill out 100% of your classrooms with these signs,” Bean said.
Texas House Candidate Cheryl Bean pledged to fill Arlington ISD's 75 schools with the Ten Commandment posters.
Screenshot of Arlington School Board Meeting
The State House candidate presented the school board with a blue and yellow version of the signs that state “Ten Commandments” in bubble letters for elementary schools. She also purchased black and white posters for middle and high school classrooms.
“[The posters] meet all the requirements, there’s no catch here,” Bean said. “I would just really like to see our students have that in the rooms and [for it] to be available for them to read.”
The Private Donor Loophole
Andrew Bushard, president of the Austin chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, believes Texas lawmakers went into the legislative session knowing that a donation-based approach to the Ten Commandments requirement would be successful. In 2021, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 797, which requires public schools to display “In God We Trust” posters if the displays are “donated” or “purchased by private donations.”The donation strategy appears to be a good one, because it muddies the waters of the Establishment Clause — which outlines the separation of church and state — by introducing church ideals into taxpayer spaces without requiring public dollars to be spent on the displays.
“I think it’s definitely possible that [SB 797] was a trial run,” Bushard said. “[Christian legislators] like to [make progress] a little bit by a little bit. So if they get one victory here, that emboldens them, and then they can keep moving forward.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is one of several organizations representing plaintiffs in a legal challenge to SB 10 that was filed in July. The suit, which names 11 Texas school districts as defendants, including Plano ISD, claims SB 10 disregards “numerous objections from Texas families and faith leaders from across the religious spectrum.”
According to the ACLU, one of the plaintiffs in the case, opponents to SB 10 have planned to file a preliminary injunction, which would allow a court to bar the state from implementing the new law until a final decision is made in the lawsuit. That injunction has yet to be granted, though, and already districts are being supplied with posters, overwhelmingly from conservative politicians and Christian organizations.
🇺🇸 The CDF Texas team, alongside local faith hero Kyle Baker, delivered 1,350 Ten Commandments posters to Allen ISD to be displayed in classrooms across the district!
— Citizens Defending Freedom (@cdfusa) August 12, 2025
💥 Want to make an impact? Donate now: https://t.co/wCyxBAdkmV pic.twitter.com/21jjs3DmHQ
A hearing in the case is expected to take place this Friday.
King, the bill’s author, told WFAA earlier this week that he has spent $7,500 buying posters for classrooms in his district, which spans parts of Fort Worth, Arlington, Weatherford, Mineral Wells, Mansfield and Burleson.
A live tracker on the website of the conservative Christian organization Texas Values shows that, in Texas alone, the group has supplied Ten Commandments posters to 108,220 classrooms. The organization is also running a poster campaign in Arkansas.
“It was important to us that we are able to take private donations and give those to the school districts and not burden them with having to come up with funding,” Jonathan Covey, director of policy for Texas Values, told WFAA.
For Bushard, whose organization advocates for the Establishment Clause, the passage of SB 10 during the legislative session revealed that Texas politicians have not just embraced the religious right — they’ve subscribed to their teachings.
“The Trump administration has one of these core constituencies, what we call the Christian Nationalists. And they are wanting to blur the line, if not completely tear down the line, between church and state,” Bushard said. “Texas is a prime place to do that. … This might not fly as much up North, but here, it’ll fly very well.”
