Alabama lawmakers did a lot of new things for K-12 and higher education during the 2025 legislative session, but they also left several high-profile proposals on the table. From culture-war bills to day-to-day changes, many measures fell short of final passage.
With one legislative day remaining, more than a dozen education-related bills are still in play. But for the proposals below, this session is effectively over.
Subscribe to The Alabama Baptist today!
A bill requiring all school boards to create a policy on how they would allow students to leave campus for religious instruction was a top priority for Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth but it ultimately failed to pass.
The House version didn’t advance out of committee, and while the Senate version passed the full chamber, it failed to advance in a different House committee to which it was hastily reassigned. Ainsworth has promised to bring the bill back “again and again and again” until it becomes law.
A 2019 law already allows school boards to have a policy if there’s enough interest, but Senate Bill 278 would have required them to create a policy.
Separate bills that would have required schools and colleges to display the Ten Commandments also stalled. The House version passed that chamber but was never taken up by a Senate committee. A Senate version cleared its initial committee but never made it to the floor.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Trisha Powell Crain and originally published by Alabama Daily News.
Share with others: