Was film crew’s visit to Keller high school religious advocacy? Emails give an idea

In our Reality Check stories, Star-Telegram journalists dig deeper into questions over facts, consequences and accountability. Read more. Story idea? RealityCheck@star-telegram.com.

When a representative from a Dutch broadcasting company proposed a collaboration with Keller schools in January, former school board member Sandi Walker initially asked for a few days to consider the offer.

But it ultimately didn’t take her that much time to decide. She replied less than an hour later.

“Yes I would love to meet this weekend and chat. I too want to glorify God as well,” she wrote, according to an email exchange the Star-Telegram received through a public information request.

Walker has since resigned from her position on the school board after the film crew from a Dutch company whose name translates to “Evangelical Broadcaster” sparked outrage from parents who were unaware of the visit until after filming and interviewing had already taken place at Central High School.

The correspondence began when a person named Petrie Trudell, who signed the email as a member of the company’s research team, emailed Walker on on Jan. 18. The film crew visited Central on Feb. 9.

Trudell clearly laid out her company’s goals for the collaboration with Keller schools.

The company wanted to highlight the “importance of faith, especially in regards to what young children have to read in school” and “why it is so important that the Conservative Christians push back on the WOKE agenda trying to infiltrate the US school system,” Trudell wrote in the email.

“We will try to show our Dutch viewers the total picture of what is going on in Texas, but would look to zoom in on de gender transition situation, the education system and whatever other issues are current in Texas,” she wrote.

Trudell declined to comment, saying that the company is preparing its own statement “about what truly happened.”

Keller school board President Charles Randklev did not immediately respond to an email seeking the board’s stance on these issues.

Filming public school students without parent permission is illegal in some instances under Texas law. Permission is not required if the filming is for the purposes of a report by the news media, but the Texas Education Code requires a school district employee to obtain parent permission before they “make or authorize the making of a videotape of a child, or record or authorize the recording of a child’s voice.”

The separation of church and state within U.S. schools means finding a “delicate balance” between not advocating a certain religion “but then also not completely forbidding discussion of religion,” according to Jill Heinrich, a professor of education at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa.

On either side of this balance are two provisions in the First Amendment: the establishment clause and the free exercise clause.

“The establishment clause says that the government can do nothing to promote a particular religion, and schools are considered an arm of the state, so they also cannot promote a particular religion,” Heinrich said in a phone interview.

Nor can schools take any actions to hinder students’ free exercise of religion. This balance is most evident in student-led events like See You At the Pole, at which students gather to pray on school campuses. Teachers, however, cannot participate in such events, as it would constitute a form of advocacy for a particular religion.

Walker’s statement clearly appears to tip that balance into an outright endorsement for the type of conservative Christianity outlined by Trudell in her email, Heinrich said.

“What it comes down to is advocacy, and this seems like advocacy,” she said.

While there are no federal sanctions that can be placed on a school district that engages in religious advocacy, such incidents can lead to costly court cases.

“The biggest penalty, to be honest, is it gets litigious, and that’s very expensive for schools,” Heinrich said.

The main legal issue remains the filming and interviewing of students without parental consent. Had the district obtained this consent, Heinrich said, it may have avoided concerns of violating the separation of church and state, as the interviews could have been considered covered under the students’ right to free exercise of their religion.

Several parents raised concerns about the film crew at the Keller school board’s February meeting. Many called for the resignation of board member Micah Young, who posted to social media an apology for participating in the filming, but has not resigned.

The correspondence was initially published on X in early March by Keller school district parent Laney Hawes, who also made a public records request for the board’s communications with the broadcasting company. The records, she wrote, “shed a light on the audacity ... of our board & their commitment to pushing their own personal political/religious agendas.”

A mother of students in Keller schools who declined to give her name told the Star-Telegram before the board meeting that parents raising these concerns were overreacting.

“Kids film stuff all the time,” she said. “In the world that we live in today, am I all that concerned? No.”

The Dutch company previously published a series titled, “God, Jesus, Trump!” Trudell told Walker that the program was meant to show the “true heart and motivation of the Christian voters in America, Democrats as well as Republicans.”

The program in which the footage taken at Central High School will feature is set to broadcast in April, Trudell wrote.