Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating Fort Worth ISD and dozens of other school districts over whether they are complying with new state laws requiring Ten Commandments displays and board votes on prayer time in schools.<\/p>\n
Paxton announced the statewide probe Thursday<\/a>, weeks ahead of a May 26 runoff election where the attorney general is challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn for his seat. Paxton directed districts to send documents related to two religion-related laws passed by Texas lawmakers in 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cI will always fight for students\u2019 fundamental right to pray in our schools and work to ensure that Texas kids are able to learn from the Ten Commandments daily,\u201d Paxton said in a news release.<\/p>\n One law requires public schools to display donated copies of the Ten Commandments<\/a> that meet certain specifications. Another requires school boards to take a record vote<\/a> on whether to adopt a policy allowing designated time for voluntary prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts.<\/p>\n Fort Worth ISD is one of 30 districts named in Paxton\u2019s announcement, along with Dallas, Houston, Austin, Plano, Waco, Lubbock and El Paso.\u00a0<\/p>\n The attorney general\u2019s office said it is asking districts to provide proof that school boards voted on whether to adopt prayer time. The office is also seeking documents related to Ten Commandments displays and district policies tied to that law.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fort Worth ISD spokespeople said in a statement that it is waiting for more information from the attorney general\u2019s office.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this time we are awaiting clarification from the AGs office related to the pending SB 10 lawsuit,\u201d district spokespeople said. \u201cThe district will continue to comply with any relevant legal requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n In a 7-1 decision on Feb. 24, the district\u2019s elected trustees voted against adopting a policy to create a dedicated prayer period. District staff recommended rejecting the policy, saying Fort Worth ISD already allows students to pray and engage in religious expression during the school day and on school property.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents are free to continue exercising these rights, whether or not the board adopts the resolution,\u201d district staff wrote in board documents.<\/p>\n The investigation comes weeks after Paxton\u2019s office successfully defended challenges to the Ten Commandments bill before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit<\/a>, allowing the law to take effect statewide.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paxton previously encouraged Texas school districts to adopt policies<\/a> setting aside time for prayer and religious text reading. Of Fort Worth-area districts, only Keller and Aledo adopted the prayer period<\/a>. Under the law, student participation requires parental consent.<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s note: This story was updated May 8, 2026, with a statement from Fort Worth ISD.<\/p>\n Disclosure: The Sid W. Richardson Foundation, which is led by FWISD manager Pete Geren, is a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. FWISD manager Laurie George is a member of the Report\u2019s reader advisory council. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org<\/a> or @matthewsgroi1<\/a>.<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/05\/07\/paxton-investigates-fwisd-other-texas-districts-over-ten-commandments-prayer-laws\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&quality=80&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=533294&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/05\/07\/paxton-investigates-fwisd-other-texas-districts-over-ten-commandments-prayer-laws\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fortworthreport.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Matthew Sgroi, Fort Worth Report May 7, 2026 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating Fort Worth…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":786259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[286113,5229,7371,14948,7372,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-786258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-socials","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-fort-worth","11":"tag-fort-worth-isd","12":"tag-fortworth","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116549651680797633","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}