Hancock County schools teach religion in classroom
November 28, 1999
RAWSON, O. - A single student sits in the back of the small
classroom, headphones blocking out the teacher and her lesson.
It is a lesson that the third grader doesn't have to listen to -- a
lesson, some say, none of the youngsters at Cory-Rawson
Elementary School should be hearing inside their public school.
"Psalms 92:1," the children recite in unison. "It is a
good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises onto thy
name, O Most High."
"Who would like to try it on their own?" asks the teacher,
Patty Collins. Several hands shoot into the air. Each child recites the
verse flawlessly.
For more than 50 years, teachers paid by the Hancock County Religious
Education Association have been holding weekly, 20-minute classes with
elementary students that include Bible
verses and stories, songs about God, and general words of encouragement.
Attendance at the classes is optional. Youngsters must have their
parents sign permission slips for them to attend, but most take
part.
And most of their parents are fiercely defensive of the classes they
enjoyed as children growing up in the same communities. Never mind that
the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in 1948 that offering religious instruction on
public school property during the school day was unconstitutional.
"We're not really studying religion. We're helping kids learn
how to behave and how to treat each other," said Dick Powell, a
retired pastor and president of the nondenominational religious
education association since 1961. "It is not a doctrine we're
teaching. We're just trying to teach the children choices - what's right
and wrong."
Officials with area school districts that host the classes argue that
no one has objected to the weekly instruction. But at least two area
districts ended the long-standing tradition this fall when complaints
were lodged.
In Arcadia Local Schools, the board in September decided to drop the
class after several complaints and a threat of legal action were made.
Arrangements are being made to resume the class at a nearby church. The
district north of Findlay has 650 pupils.
In Van Wert County, Crestview Local Schools four weeks ago suspended
the teaching of a similar class by the local Heritage Fund Board because
of complaints and the threat of a lawsuit. Community members there are
seeking a new location for the class, which had been offered for
children in kindergarten through sixth grade.
Crestview Superintendent Beth Hargreaves said she was taken aback by
the class when she was hired two years ago. But she said she didn't feel
it was her place to end it until complaints were registered. The
district has about 1,000 pupils.
"I came in and tried to be respectful of what I thought was the
fabric of the community and I tried to honor that, but I still have a
legal responsibility to uphold the Constitution and the law," she
said. "It puts us in a pickle . . . Even some of our
board members are struggling with their responsibilities as public
people when privately they are very devout Christian people."
Critics say there should be no struggle.
"The Constitution is not optional for public schools," said
Steve Benen, spokesman for the Washington-based Americans
United for Separation of Church and State. "They don't have the
luxury of whether or not they want to agree with the Supreme Court about
the Constitution. The law does not afford them that luxury, nor should
they have it."
Ray Vasvari, legal director for the American
Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said it's not up to a community to
decide whether such classes belong in the public schools.
"It's not a matter of community standards," Mr. Vasvari
said. "We have one standard, a national standard, that prohibits
the state from getting into the religion business or endorsing
religion.''
No one is quite sure when the Hancock County Religious Education
Association began. A Methodist minister in McComb started the education
effort in that town at least 55 years ago, according to Mr. Powell, and
his idea eventually spread throughout the county.
Since then, the association, which exists solely to offer the classes
at local schools, has been funded by donations from individuals,
organizations, and churches of nearly every Christian denomination. Two
instructors - Mr. Powell's wife, Dorothy, and Ms. Collins, who has been
employed by the association for 41 years - visit the schools and in some
cases a designated church near the schools, one day each week.
State law allows schools to dismiss students during the school day to
attend off-premise religious instruction as long as the school neither
encourages or discourages participation. It also allows public schools
to teach objectively about the Bible as literature or about the impact
religion has had on history. It does not permit the kind of class taught
one day recently to third graders at Cory-Rawson Elementary.
The class has 16 children. Fifteen listened attentively as Ms.
Collins told them a Bible story about Samuel and how he was chosen by
God to be a great leader. One student chose not to participate in the
discussion. Wearing headphones, the boy quietly did schoolwork.
Before leaving the classroom, Ms. Collins reminded students to give
thanks before their Thanksgiving meal.
"The pilgrims came and fought for a lot of freedoms for us,
including the freedom to worship God the way we want to," she told
them.
In the hallway outside, children rushed up to hug Ms. Collins.
"My mom said to tell you hi," one girl said, wrapping her
arms around the 62-year-old.
"I had her mother in class when she was a girl," Ms.
Collins explained.
Stephen Puchta, superintendent of Vanlue Local Schools, was in Ms.
Collins's religion class at Vanlue Elementary in the early 1960s. His
district continues to host the class, and he said few, if any,
youngsters choose not to attend.
"It was very positive," Mr. Puchta said. "She's very
pleasant and makes it very enjoyable, very nonthreatening. It's not
going to hurt anyone. It didn't hurt me."
Susan Lambert, 45, said she enjoyed the class as a youngster at Cory-Rawson
Elementary. The district has about 800 pupils.
"It seemed like everybody just had a different feeling when she
came in," she said. "There was just a camaraderie."
Ms. Collins said she meets with 1,200 students a week from Cory-Rawson,
McComb, Liberty-Benton, and Vanlue schools in Hancock County and at
Leipsic Elementary in Putnam County. Mrs. Powell teaches at McComb
Middle School, Arlington, and Arcadia. In each case except
Liberty-Benton - and now Arcadia - the classes are held inside the
school buildings.
The Liberty-Benton school system just west of Findlay has grown so
much in recent years, the district now has nearly every world religion
represented in its student body, said Superintendent Dennis Recker. He
said the district chose to move the religion class to a nearby church
three years ago when "people of other religious persuasions"
complained that they were offended by it.
Years ago, Edyie Addington, who describes herself as an agnostic, let
her two children decide whether to attend the religious education class
offered at Arcadia Elementary. Initially, they decided not to, but after
spending the weekly class time sitting in the hallway, they changed
their minds the next year.
"My kids were upset. Everybody would walk by and stare at them
like, 'What did you do?' " Mrs. Addington recalled.
She knew the class violated the Constitution but said nothing.
"I went through all these years and just kept my mouth
shut," she said. "I didn't want my kids to have a problem so I
didn't say anything."
The ACLU's Mr. Vasvari said therein lies the problem.
"The Constitution is designed to protect majorities from abusing
minorities . . .," he said. "The problem is when
you have everyone saying they want it, you may have a few who are afraid
to say they don't. These issues are personal. No one wants to take the
stand."
In 1984, the parents of two Findlay City Schools students sued the
school board in federal court over a class offered by the Findlay
Weekday Religious Education Council in the city's 10 public elementary
buildings.
After reviewing the case, Judge John Potter of U.S. District Court
ordered the school to stop holding the class.
"The policy impermissibly advances nonsecular interests in that
it creates, for impressionable 8 and 9-year-old children, the appearance
of official support for religion," Judge Potter wrote in his 1985
decision.
Despite the ruling, the county schools continued to host the class.
No one sued them. Had they, the outcome would have been inevitable.
In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional for the
Champaign, Ill., public schools to allow clergy and others into the
schools to offer religious instruction. The ruling has been upheld time
and again.
"When you allow people to come right in the building during
school hours to promote particular sectarian views, then you really are
suggesting both that school authorities are supporting this and that
this is the right thing to do," said Jonathan Entin, professor of
law at Case Western Reserve University.
"Someone who might have a different idea might feel singled out
for disapproval and that could promote various types of conflicts and
division in the schools,'' he said.
Arcadia Superintendent David Lewis said residents were disappointed
when the board discontinued the religion class this fall.
"Some people would say it is good for all kids, but they're not
thinking of the child who is being taught something different at home
and either has to leave the classroom or sit and listen to something
different than what they're being taught,'' he said.
The fact that several area schools continue to offer religious
education classes is astounding to some.
"This sounds like something that you may have found 35 years ago
in some parts of the country that were just completely unaware that the
Supreme Court had outlawed this," Mr. Benen said. "The fact
that this is happening in 1999 borders on outrageous. It's inviting a
lawsuit that the school district would instantly lose."
Richard Steiner, superintendent at Cory-Rawson Local Schools south of
Findlay, said he knows the class is illegal, but until it is challenged,
it will remain.
"What it does or hopefully what it does is help the kids make
the right decisions," Mr. Steiner said. "Our school discipline
has been excellent over the years. I can't say whether [the class] has
contributed or not, but I hope it has."
Mr. Benen questions that type of thinking. "What kind of example
are school administrators setting when they say, 'We're aware of the
fact that we're breaking the law, but we're going to do it anyway until
we get caught.' What is that telling children?" he asked.
Mr. Powell said the association will continue doing what it's doing
even if it means finding a location away from the schools to hold the
classes.
"As long as we have the permission to do it we feel that it's
all right," Mr. Powell said. "It is a public building and if
you think about it the people who support this program also pay
taxes."
The Van Wert City Schools inherited the problem in 1988, when Ohio
City merged with the district. At the small elementary school in Ohio
City not far from the Indiana border, religious education has been a
tradition.
"It's part of the culture of that community and they expect it
to happen there at their school, and as long as we're not challenged,
we're going to support it," Superintendent John Basinger said.
"But we'll never defend it using any public tax dollars because you
can't defend it. I think all the case history is pretty clear."
Mr. Vasvari said the classes cannot continue.
"This is a matter of genuine concern to the ACLU of Ohio. It is
something we will look into further," he said. "These
practices violate 36 years of established First Amendment precedent.
They are plainly illegal, and they must stop."
© 1999, The
Blade, All Rights Reserved.
Even before new guidelines, Bible on
South's reading list
By VICKI GUARINO
A new curriculum guide released nationally last month tells a group
of Medford teachers something they've known for several years: The Bible
is a valuable resource for literature studies.
"The Bible and Public Schools: A First Amendment Guide" has
received across-the-board endorsement from Christian educators, Jewish
groups, school boards and labor unions. The guide lays out for teachers
a middle ground between those who want Bible courses
in
schools to promote faith and those who prefer God never be mentioned in
the classroom.
It encourages schools to offer courses in the Bible as literature;
explain the role of religion in political and social movements such as
abolition, temperance and civil rights; and expose students to the basic
ideas of the world's major religions.
Those are some of the things South Medford High School teachers have
been doing for five years. Freshmen in honors English classes have been
reading Genesis to gain a background and understanding of the Jewish
people in connection with a classroom examination
of
the Holocaust.
Genesis tells students something of the history of the Jewish people,
engendering a deeper understanding of the Holocaust, says South teacher
Todd Bloomquist.
South students read, discuss and analyze the Bible not as history or
as a matter of faith, but as literature, he says.
The stories of Genesis stand on their own as literary works and serve
to illuminate Jewish history, says Bloomquist, and they provide students
with reference points for further reading throughout high school and
college.
"The Bible is the single most quoted piece of literature that
has ever been written," Bloomquist says. "It's the biggest
publication there is. Ignoring it is silly."
The newly released education guide makes a similar conclusion.
Students "cannot be uncritically taught to accept the Bible as
literally true, as history," the guide states, but neither can
schools "jettison accounts of miraculous events ... for it
radically distorts the meaning of the Bible."
The guide was developed by the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center
at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and the National Bible
Association.
"The First Amendment is not intended to make our schools a
religion-free zone," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the
center.
It was the very presence of the Bible at South that prompted
Bloomquist to introduce it in the classroom. He came across volumes of
the King James Bible, given freely by Gideons International, in a South
storeroom.
At the time, Bloomquist was looking for materials for students that
he could tie into the Holocaust studies.
"I was looking for resources and I stumbled across those Gideon
Bibles," he said.
Bibles long have been acceptable as a teaching resource, Bloomquist
found when he checked Medford school district curriculum guides. He
figures the book fell into disuse because teachers became wary of its
potential political charge.
"I think people are scared of it, and there's an assumption that
you can't use it, but that's not true at all," he says. "It's
not illegal as long as it's taught appropriately."
Publishers of the "Bible and Public Schools" guide point
out that the Supreme Court has ruled that public schools may teach
students about the Bible as long as the teaching is "presented
objectively as part of a secular program of education."
Bloomquist says, "No one wants anybody's faith or theology
jammed down their kid's throats."
Aware of the potential for misunderstanding, however, Bloomquist and
other South teachers have made a point of discussing the Bible use in
the classroom during parent conferences. Also, the teachers send a
letter home explaining the literary study.
Only once has a parent expressed concern, but the issues were
resolved after a conference with Bloomquist.
"I'd say if there has been any comment at all it has been a very
positive response," he says
Copyright 1999 Oregon Mail
Tribune. All rights reserved.
