After working more than 20 years as a school counselor, Vickie Holmes packed up her office over Labor Day weekend and quit her job. 

The reason? A Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum, which her former school implemented at the directive of a Texas state law, but was potentially interpreted by the school in an unauthorized manner. 

After looking into the curriculum, Holmes told IW Features she was uncomfortable with the content as she was being forced to implement Buddhist and New Age practices as a Christian. And when school administrators were unwilling to provide reasonable accommodations, she was left with no choice but to leave. 

“I can’t compromise my values,” Holmes said. 

The issue with the curriculum was not the concept of Social Emotional Learning itself, Holmes explained, but with the inclusion of New Age spiritual teachings. Her former school decided to use the free online curriculum “Choose Love Movement,” and while some of the content focused on compassion, courage, and forgiveness — core tenets of SEL — it also invoked concepts she believes parents could be uncomfortable with.

“Choose Love [Movement] happens to have YouTube videos as part of their curriculum, and it looks like their founders just kind of pulled things from YouTube in random places,” Holmes said. “There are a lot of videos that have to do with mental health techniques to calm down, and a lot of those techniques are spiritually rooted.”

Holmes, who is a Christian herself, said she also does not believe Christian teachings should be included in these curricula either. In fact, she said she feels that it’s important to keep religious teachings out of the public school classroom entirely. 

“This is spiritually dangerous to kids. Think of a Buddhist parent learning their child is going to learn Christianity. That wouldn’t be okay,” Holmes said. “And now we have Christian families, or atheist families, or any religion families, and their kids are being exposed without their knowledge to techniques and practices that are rooted in Buddhism and the New Age. Most people would not understand that, and would think ‘Oh, it’s just mental health.’” 

Starting in the 2022-23 school year, the Texas State Board of Education required that SEL be implemented in public schools. Through the state’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills K-12 standards, schools were directed to include teaching on character traits such as courage, integrity, and empathy. But the “Choose Love Movement” curriculum took it a step further, according to Holmes. 

The curriculum included content on “chimes that mirror mind clearing used in Zen or Tibetan Buddhism and New Age practices,” Holmes explained. “It includes the use of chimes/other sounds for the purpose of inviting spiritual deities into the space and/or promoting a state of deep meditation used in spiritual rituals.”

Through the curriculum, the schools are “teaching them how to clear their mind. We’re teaching them how to meditate. We’re teaching them mindfulness. Some mindfulness is benign, but mindfulness that could be rooted in visualization, which could be rooted in New Age practices, is not,” she argued. 

Because of Holmes’s role as a counselor at the school, the SEL fell under her purview, and she was in charge of sending the curriculum to teachers. Holmes went to her school’s administration and asked if she would be able to modify the curriculum. Some of the content was fine, she told them, but the videos and educational materials rooted in various religious beliefs were not. Holmes instead advocated for non-spiritual and neutral videos to replace those rooted in Buddhism and New Age teachings. 

“They said, ‘Well, you have to go through a process. You have to send your concerns on this Google form, along with the video that you’re concerned about, and we’re going to have a committee review it, and if they agree, then they will change it the week before that is pushed out to teachers,’” Holmes said. “And I was like, ‘Well, that’s still a problem, because then every week I’m wondering, “do I quit? Do I not quit?” If sometimes you’re OK with what I change, sometimes you’re not OK with it or what I’m concerned about.’” 

Holmes said that last year she was able to more easily change the curriculum. But this school year, the district required full implementation. 

“I asked them, ‘Look, I would quit before I implement this. Please just change it, it’s not a big deal to switch out this video for this video, it’s the exact same point and objective,’” Holmes said. “I am the one that has to push this out to teachers and I’m not going to be in charge of spiritually endangering kids.” 

Holmes explained that SEL, on the whole, is not destructive and can be productive to implement in classrooms, especially with large class sizes and various different types of student personalities. 

“Social Emotional Learning can have a bad connotation because of other things that can be put into it. But in general, it shouldn’t. It’s just teaching students how to emotionally regulate. It has some character-building skills in there, and it is fine to teach them how to calm down, right?” Holmes said. “It’s helpful if it’s done in the right way, but when we’re adding religious connotations to it, when has it ever been OK in public school to teach a specific religion? Right?” 

For Holmes, public school curriculum should be impartial—a belief she holds strong, even as a Christian herself. The SEL teachings should be no different, she said. 

“If parents send their child to a Christian school, that’s what they want them to hear. If parents send their child to a Jewish school, that’s what they want them to hear,” Holmes said. “And [if] they send them to a public school, they’re expecting them not to hear or learn about religious practices.” 

So this past Labor Day weekend, Holmes quit her job. She was potentially risking the opportunity to get another job, due to penalties for backing out of a contract, and was unsure what would happen next. But for Holmes, her values mattered more. 

“The whole point is parental awareness,” Holmes said. “Parents should have the right to determine the religious practices their children are being taught.”