Livingston Parish, LA May Add Creationism To Curriculum

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Using provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, the Livingston Parish may present what is termed “critical thinking and creationism” in science classes. I don't know about you but when I see critical thinking and creationism in the same sentence I think oxymoron.

From The Advocate in Baton Rouge, LA

School Board might OK teaching creationism

By VIC COUVILLION
Special to The Advocate|

LIVINGSTON — The Livingston Parish School Board will begin exploring the possibility of incorporating the teaching of “creationism” in the public school system’s science classes.
During the board’s meeting Thursday, several board members expressed an interest in the teaching of creationism, an alternative to the study of the theory of evolution, in Livingston Parish public school classrooms.
The discussion came up during a report on the pupil progression plan for the 2010-11 school year, delivered by Jan Benton, director of curriculum.
Benton said that under provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, schools can present what she termed “critical thinking and creationism” in science classes.
Board Member David Tate quickly responded: “We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can’t we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?”

"We let them teach evolution..."? Excuse me but who is "them"? "Them" sounds ominous.

Fellow board member Clint Mitchell responded, “I agree … you don’t have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution. Teachers should have the freedom to look at creationism and find a way to get it into the classroom.”
Board President Keith Martin, while reminding the members that a decision had been made in the past not to teach creationism, suggested that now might be the time to re-examine the issue.
Martin said that one problem with the teaching of creationism versus evolution is that, “You don’t want two different teachers teaching two different things.”
Martin, noting that discipline of young people is constantly becoming more of a challenge for parents and teachers, agreed: “Maybe it’s time that we look at this.”

What does teaching evolution or creationism have to do with discipline?

When Martin suggested that the board appoint a committee to study the possibility of introducing creationism into the classroom, his opinion met with general, if unofficial approval.
“We shouldn’t just jump into this thing, but we do need to look at it,” Martin said. “The American Civil Liberties Union and even some of our principals would not be pleased with us, but we shouldn’t worry about the ACLU. It’s more important that we do the correct thing for the children we educate.”

This is the most intelligent statement from the board.

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Finally Someone Gets It

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I have posted a couple of times recently (here and here) about corporal punishment in schools. Well, finally someone gets it and has proposed legislation to stop its use.

From ACLU.org:

WASHINGTON – Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) today introduced the Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act, a bill that would eliminate the use of corporal punishment in public and private schools that serve students receiving federal services. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly supports the bill, and urges Congress to swiftly pass the legislation.

 

“Children have the right to learn in a safe, supportive environment that allows them to reach their full academic potential; the Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act will help create the kind of classrooms they need,” said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The American Civil Liberties Union has fought long and hard to make corporal punishment in schools a thing of the past, and we urge Congress to finally put an end to this cruel and outdated form of punishment and swiftly act to pass this bill.”

 

Corporal punishment is a legal form of discipline in 20 states, and according to U.S. Department of Education data, it is disproportionately used against African-American students and students with disabilities. There is currently no federal ban on the use of corporal punishment against students, despite evidence that the practice injures students and hinders achievement in the classroom. The ACLU, along with dozens of coalition partners, sent a letter to Rep. McCarthy voicing strong support for the bill.

 

In addition to banning corporal punishment in public and private schools that receive federal funds, the bill also establishes a grant program for school-wide positive behavior supports, an evidence-based approach to school discipline which allows schools to proactively target potentially problematic behavior and develop approaches that can improve school climate and academic outcomes by reducing school discipline referrals.

 

“By adopting positive behavior supports and abandoning ineffective and brutal discipline, schools can create environments that encourage academic success rather than hinder it,” said Deborah J. Vagins, ACLU Legislative Counsel. “It’s time that Congress step in to end this arcane and destructive practice so that our schools can be places where students and educators interact in positive ways that foster students’ growth and dignity.”

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Itawamba Teen's Rights Were Violated

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There is an update in the Itawamba County School District case. The judge said her rights were violated. Unfortunately, the prom is still off. How small of the school district to take away the prom for all just because they do not one person to attend.

Lesbian Prom Date Ban VIOLATED Constance McMillen's Rights, Judge Says

JACKSON, Miss. — The prom's still off at a Mississippi high school
that canceled it instead of letting a lesbian student bring her
girlfriend, but a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the district's
actions did violate the teen's constitutional rights.

U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson refused the American Civil
Liberties Union's demand to force the Itawamba County school district
to put on the April 2 prom. However, he said canceling it did violate
18-year-old Constance McMillen's rights and that he would hold a trial
on the issue.

That would come too late for the prom to be salvaged at Itawamba
Agricultural High School. Still, Kristy Bennett, ACLU Mississippi legal
director, called the decision a victory.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the district to force it to
put on the prom and allow McMillen to bring her girlfriend and wear a
tuxedo. School officials said in U.S. District Court this week that
they decided to cancel it because McMillen's challenge to the rules had
caused disruptions.

The judge noted that McMillen has been openly gay since she was in
the eighth grade and that she intended to communicate a message by
wearing a tuxedo and escorting a same-sex date.

"The court finds this expression and communication falls squarely within the purview of the First Amendment," Davidson said.
As for McMillen, she said she was happy about the ruling but doesn't
know what to expect when she returns to school. She attended classes a
day after the March 10 decision to cancel the prom. But she said the
hostility and comments from other students led her to miss school. She
skipped class on Tuesday to go to the doctor and the fight is taking a
toll, she said. "My nerves are shot," she said.

District officials said in a statement that they were ready to get back to educating students.

Davidson said a private prom parents are planning will serve the same purpose as a school-sponsored one. He wrote that "requiring defendants to step back into a sponsorship role at this late date would only confuse and confound the community on the issue."

McMillen isn't sure if she'll go to the dance.

"I'm going to school tomorrow (Wednesday) and will get a feel of how everybody feels about me. That will help me make my decision about whether I'm going to the private prom," McMillen said. "I want to go because all my junior and senior class will be there, but I don't want to be somewhere I'm not welcomed."

Ben Griffith, the school district's attorney, said his clients were pleased with the ruling.

"What we're looking at now is the fact that the case is still on the docket for a trial on the merits," Griffith said.

McMillen first approached school officials about bringing her girlfriend in December, and again in February. Same-sex prom dates had been banned in the past, but she had hoped school officials would grant her request.

"I thought maybe the policy had been in place for a different reason," McMillen testified at a hearing on the ACLU lawsuit. "I wanted to let them know how it made me feel. I felt like I couldn't go to the prom."
She was told two girls couldn't attend together and she wouldn't be allowed to wear a tuxedo, court documents show. The ACLU issued a demand letter earlier this month and the district responded by canceling the event. McMillen, who lives with her grandmother and has a 3.8 grade point average, has kept her 16-year-old girlfriend out of the spotlight at the request of the girl's parents.

District officials said they felt not hosting the prom was the best decision "after taking into consideration the education, safety and well being of our students." Superintendent Teresa McNeece said it was "a no-win situation."

The 715-student high school is located in Fulton, a town of about 4,000 in rural, north Mississippi. The entire county school district has 3,588 students.

The case is typical of what's happening in schools across the country, said Charles Haynes, senior scholar for The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center.

"This case is different because this is not just dress, it is a higher claim of personal identity," Haynes said. "I think that if the student prevails in this case, it will send a message to school districts that they need to accommodate students now who are openly gay and lesbian and want to participate in student activities," Haynes said.

Her case has become a cause celebre.

She has appeared on the "The Early Show," "The Wanda Sykes Show" and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" to talk about how she is fighting for tolerance. DeGeneres presented her with a $30,000 college scholarship from Tonic, a digital media company. A Facebook page set up by the ACLU for McMillen has over 400,000 fans.

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Yet More Prayer in Public Schools

This time we find ourselves in Alexandria, Alabama where a high school had morning prayers over the schools public address system. We join the the story over at the Anniston Star.

Alexandria HS stops morning prayers after student complains

by Laura Johnson, Star Staff Writer

 

ALEXANDRIA — The Christian influence at Alexandria High School is visible, but as of this week it’s a little less overt.

There, brightly colored flyers printed with Bible verses hang on the walls, weekly Bible studies are held before class begins and, until recently, prayers were spoken over the school’s intercom system. But that regular practice stopped this week when a student questioned the legality of the practice.

“Every day in the morning we would have student-led prayer over the PA system and I looked this up. It’s illegal,” the student said. “It wasn’t just me; there were a bunch of other students who wanted it stopped.”

He said he demanded it stop in a voicemail sent to Superintendent Judy Stiefel. He also contacted the American Civil Liberties Union by e-mail and by hand-written letter to complain about the issue.

The student requested he not be named in this story because he expected his classmates would not react well to his actions.

In response to the complaint Stiefel sent out an e-mail earlier this week to every school in the system. She said Wednesday the e-mail “reminded them of the law.” The morning prayers at Alexandria High stopped Tuesday.

Alexandria Principal Ronald Chambless declined to comment for this story.

Supreme Court decisions have set precedents prohibiting school-sponsored religious activity, based on the First Amendment, which states Congress may make no law “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court has made it pretty clear that school officials cannot sponsor prayers,” said Bryan Fair, a University of Alabama law professor. “They control the PA system; the student doesn’t control the PA system. That is going to be considered government speech rather than private speech.”

However, the law does not prohibit all prayer. Private prayer and voluntary student prayer is permissible by the law and is allowed at Calhoun County Schools, according to school board attorney Robin Andrews.

“Each student is free to pray individually or with other students during non-instructional time, during lunch, before or after school; even during class, providing it’s private and doesn’t interfere with instruction,” Andrews said.

Allison Neal, legal director of the Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said these issues are common in the state and that they usually are resolved without taking any legal action. Neal said that her group normally handles such complaints by talking with school superintendents, but Stiefel said Wednesday the ACLU had not contacted her about the issue.

“I have only had one student to comment about this,” Stiefel said. “It has not been a major problem.”

The student said he was motivated to take action because he didn’t think it was fair for the student body, which he described as overwhelmingly “fundamentally Christian” to subject all students to Christian prayers and Bible verses.

“What bothered me about it is that it’s illegal and I don’t want the school breaking the law like that,” the student said. “I want to stand up for fairness. I’m a person that embraces all religion and I love everyone.”

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Indiana High School Sued Over Graduation Prayer

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Sooner or later school districts will start paying attention and stop getting themselves into these un-winnable lawsuits. However, I think it is more apt to be later.

From the Indiana Star.

Greenwood High School faces suit over prayer
Greenwood High let seniors cast ballots on graduation practice
By Jon Murray Posted: March 12, 2010

Greenwood High School honor student who learned in class about court rulings striking down school prayer has found a real-world application -- his own graduation ceremony. Eric Workman's lawsuit, filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, challenges the high school's practice of allowing seniors to vote on whether to have a student-led prayer at graduation.

ACLU attorney Ken Falk said allowing the vote and even having the prayer run afoul of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that found prayers at public school-sponsored events to violate the First Amendment.

"This is particularly egregious when it's coming from a student who's going to be sitting on the stage," Falk said.

Workman, 18, is ranked first in his class, the lawsuit says. He declined to be interviewed, but Falk said Workman approached the ACLU because he found the practice troubling in light of what he's learned in government classes.

Greenwood Schools Superintendent David Edds said a student-approved prayer has been a long-standing feature at graduation.

Controversy over school prayer has faded from the forefront since the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in 2000 that a Texas high school could not allow students to deliver prayers over the public address system at football games.

Eight years earlier, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that a public school could not offer a prayer at graduation.
Avon High School attracted attention in 2004 when it decided to forgo an invocation after the ACLU threatened a lawsuit.

The high court's decisions leave little wiggle room, but many schools have tried to accommodate prayer in other ways, often by allowing moments of silence.

According to the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, some schools, particularly in the South, are treading in murkier waters by allowing students to elect graduation speakers who can address nearly any topic, including religion, as long as the students don't vote on whether to have a prayer.

In Greenwood's case, the vote was about a prayer. Edds said the lawsuit was a surprise to him and that the school's principal, Jim Kaylor, has not yet announced the outcome or whether a prayer would be included this year.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, says the prayer question was on a ballot about several issues that school staff passed out during a mandatory senior assembly in September. Workman learned from an unnamed school employee that a majority of seniors had voted in favor of the prayer, the lawsuit says, though some students dissented.

"Through this election scheme," the suit says, "the defendants have established a forum, in the school itself, for religious debate and have subjected religious practice to a majority vote."The lawsuit names the school district and the school's principal as defendants.

The Rev. Shan Rutherford, pastor of Greenwood Christian Church for more than three decades, said he disagrees with the proposition that such a prayer would violate a student's rights.

"If I lived in a Muslim nation, a Hindu nation or anything else, I would expect to go along with the majority," Rutherford said. "He's trying to go with minority rule. To me, that's wrong in a democracy, one that was founded on Christian principles."

"If you don't agree, I don't think you should try to stop other people from exercising their rights."

Lesbian and ACLU Sue When School Says No Prom for You

Itawamba County School District board of education cancelled their high schools senior prom rather than letting Constance McMillen, a lesbian senior, bring her girl friend. There are so many things wrong with this I am not sure where to start.

This decision hurts all students, divides the community and shows the school board's bigotry and intolerance. But, more importantly it unfairly targets Constance McMillen for retaliation and continued discrimination in an obviously backwards community.


However, Constance McMillen and the ACLU of Mississippi are now suing the district to reinstate the prom.

You go girl!

**UPDATE** American Humanist Association offers to Hold LGBT-Inclusive Prom in Mississippi.

Cheatham County BoE Settles ACLU First Amendment Lawsuit

Cheatham County Court House
Image by jimmywayne via Flickr 

Cheatham County tried to do just that (cheat them that is) but got a beat down by the ACLU instead.

Tenn. school board settles lawsuit over First Amendment violations
By Bob Allen  
Thursday, March 04, 2010

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) -- A Tennessee school board voted March 1 to settle a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union last fall alleging a pattern of unconstitutional promotion of religion.

The Cheatham County Board of Education voted 5-1 to accept a settlement agreement with the ACLU of Tennessee, ending negotiations that have been going on since January.

Under terms of the agreement, school officials will no longer encourage prayer or promote their personal religious beliefs to students in class or in conjunction with school activities and events. Invocations will no longer be permitted at graduation ceremonies or school functions and speakers will no longer be selected because of their religious affiliations.

In addition, school officials will no longer permit non-student third parties, such as members of The Gideons International, to distribute Bibles during school activities or instructional time.

School officials will not cite the Bible or other sacred texts as authority for historical or scientific fact to students and will make good faith-efforts to avoid holding school programs at religious venues.

"We applaud the Cheatham County Board of Education's decision to uphold the principle of religious freedom," said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of ACLU-Tennessee. "The signed agreement ensures that all students will be treated fairly, regardless of their religious beliefs, and that the school system can focus on what it does best: providing a quality education for Cheatham County students."

The Tennessee chapter of the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the school district Nov. 16 in federal court after six months of negotiations failed to resolve the dispute.

The ACLU sued the school district on behalf of two former students and the families of two current students who alleged that board members and the principals of two schools for years have endorsed and promoted religion through extracurricular activities like marching band, choir and sports; classroom instruction and related content; and graduation ceremonies and other school events.

Specific allegations included:

    * A band instructor who, while leading the marching band in practice for an upcoming football halftime performance, stopped and called on a particular student to pray.
    * A December 2007 concert where students sang Christmas and other seasonal songs and the choir director said something like, "We all know the reason we are here tonight, even if we are not allowed to say it" to the crowd.
    * A band Christmas concert in 2008 where students were asked to read lyrics or introductions to Christmas songs before the band played them. One of the plaintiffs was selected to read a religious lyric, but was reassigned a non-religious lyric after another student objected that it shouldn't be read by a non-Christian.
    * Distribution of Gideon Bibles inside classrooms at Cheatham Middle School, in which students were instructed to line up to receive Bibles and to write their names in them.
    * One high-school teacher displayed a foot-tall cross in his classroom next to a whiteboard used for student instruction. Another teacher required students to read and write about the biblical creation stories as an assignment for English class. A world history teacher introduced "intelligent design" as an acceptable alternative to evolution. An American history teacher read, in an angry tone, a handout emphasizing that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation" and criticizing the ACLU. None of those incidents, the lawsuit argues, were related to the general curriculum of the class or relevant to lessons being discussed that week.

Charles Haynes of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center said at the time if the allegations were true, the school district in Cheatham County was "in clear violation" of the First Amendment

Washington High School Discriminates Against Male Cheerleader

He wasn't allowed to move his legs or hips when cheering. It sounds like the 50's when Elvis Presley was censored.

PALOUSE, Wash., Feb. 3 (UPI) -- A male high school cheerleader in Washington state says administrators discriminated against him by not letting him perform the same routines as the girls.

Benjamin Grundy said he was told at the start of the year at Garfield-Palouse High School in Palouse that he would be able to participate in dance routines and other activities performed by the female cheerleaders, only to be pressured later to wear a mascot's uniform and barred from moving his legs or hips while cheering, Spokane's KXLY-TV reported Wednesday.

Grundy's mother, Suzanne, said her letters to state officials, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups -- including KXLY -- pressured the school to give her son an official cheer uniform and pompoms. However, she said she does not consider the case closed and she wants further measures taken, including seminars against discrimination and reprimands for involved school officials.

"I think the combination of a biracial, mentally challenged gay male may be too much for them," Suzanne Grundy said of school officials.

ACLU Sues LA County Probation and Schools

Working for a K12 institution similar to the one being sued by the ACLU and other civil rights organizations I am appalled that this is happening to our youth. Most of the kids in these institutions have been kicked by everyone by the time they get them. Now their last hope for any chance at a normal life is being taken away. Shame on these people.

Note: To get a sense of how some kids end up at these institutions that really aren't juvenile delinquents, please play the ACLU's School to Prison Pipeline game.

Landmark Federal Class-Action Lawsuit Charges Los Angeles County With Failure To Educate Youth In Probation Camps 

LOS ANGELES – An alliance of legal groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Southern California today filed a ground-breaking class-action lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Probation Department and top county education officials for their total failure to provide youth in the county's largest juvenile probation facility with basic and appropriate education. The failure has resulted in children not being adequately prepared to re-enter society and the workforce.

The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles, charges that county personnel – including administrators and teachers at the Challenger Memorial Youth Center in Lancaster, California – have in some instances relied on worksheets in lieu of substantive classroom instruction, denied all educational services to children who ask for help and failed to ensure that students participate in the required minimum school day.

"The conscience-shocking practices at Challenger are among the most egregious failures to deliver education and rehabilitative services to incarcerated youth ever documented in the nation, turning out juveniles who are functionally illiterate, unable to fill out job applications or medical forms, read menus or newspapers or vote in elections," said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the ACLU of Southern California. "The lives of these young people matter, yet the county is releasing them in conditions which all but assure their failure to meaningfully reintegrate, having been denied even a semblance of an education for years upon years. This is a system out of control, with no accountability and no concern for the children under its charge."

The lawsuit is the result of a months-long investigation by the legal groups and details one recent instance of a young man, incarcerated in county probation camps for most of his high school years, who was awarded a high school diploma despite being unable to read or write. It also alleges that administrators and teachers directed students to leave classrooms to perform tasks such as painting buildings and removing weeds, while billing the state for instructional days as if these students were in class.

The Challenger center consists of six camps and a single school that serves about 650 students. It has been the target of a Department of Justice investigation over mistreatment and poor supervision of students, and was cited as having a "broken" school system in a 2009 Los Angeles County Probation Commission report. The lawsuit filed today goes beyond these findings and reveals startling new details about how county agencies and officials have abdicated their core responsibility of providing education to youths forced to attend school at Challenger.
 
"The failure to provide an adequate education to detained youth, many of whom are youth of color, only sets them up for failure and increases the odds that they will remain trapped in the school-to-prison-pipeline," said Catherine Kim, staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. "We have a particular responsibility to ensure that our most vulnerable children be rehabilitated and prepared to successfully reintegrate into mainstream society."

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are the Los Angeles County Probation Department, the superintendent of the county's Office of Education, the director of that agency's juvenile court schools and Challenger's current principal. Along with the ACLU and the ACLU of Southern California, the lawsuit was filed by the Public Counsel Law Center and the Disability Rights Legal Center.

All three of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, like many other students at Challenger, were unlawfully removed from class numerous times. Challenger school staff refused to allow these removals to be questioned or appealed, depriving the students of their due process rights as well as the opportunity to learn.

"The students at Challenger deserve, and are legally entitled to, an education," said Laura Faer, director of the Children's Rights Project at Public Counsel Law Center. "What they get instead is abuse, retaliation and needless punishment. These actions are the hallmarks of an institution that consigns children to a life in the criminal justice system, which is exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do. This is the moral equivalent of placing a child in handcuffs and throwing away the key." 

Among other things, the lawsuit seeks to force the county to provide intensive reading remediation services to current and former students at Challenger who are three or more years behind their chronological grade level in reading ability, and to prevent county officials from excluding students from classrooms without providing them with notice and an opportunity to challenge the basis for their removal.

"Put simply, the youth at Challenger are not being given a chance," said Carly Munson, a staff attorney with the Education Advocacy Program at the Disability Rights Legal Center. "It is time to stop these children from being treated like they are throw-away kids. The agencies we have sued today have both a moral and legal obligation to change their practices, and this is their opportunity to do it."

A copy of today's lawsuit is available online at: www.aclu.org/racial-justice/casey-et-al-v-robles-et-al-complaint

Additional information about the ACLU Racial Justice Program is available online at: www.aclu.org/racialjustice

Additional information about the ACLU of Southern California is available online at: www.aclu-sc.org

Additional information about the Public Counsel Law Center is available online at: www.publiccounsel.org

Additional information about the Disability Rights Legal Center is available online at: www.disabilityrightslegalcenter.org

Oh Noes! My Christian Beliefs Are Under Attack!

All I can say is I hope this teacher doesn't teach civics. Because she has no clue about the basics of Separation of Church and State.

Teachers want to revamp school prayer decree 

Vicki Kirsch, a third-grade teacher at Dixon Intermediate School in Milton, told a federal court Wednesday that an agreement to end officially sanctioned prayer in Santa Rosa County schools is at odds with her religious beliefs.

"My Christian beliefs are under attack and ... I wasn't able to do the things that I could do before the consent decree," she testified.
Kirsch's testimony came on the first day of a hearing in which a religious educators group called Christian Educators Association International is asking a judge to allow it to participate in the revamping of the decree.

In August 2008, two Pace High School students sued the School District and Pace Principal Frank Lay, saying school officials routinely pushed their religious beliefs upon students.

Last May, the American Civil Liberties Union, representing the students, and the School District struck an agreement to end the long-standing practice.

Now, the Christian Educators, representing 11 district employees, claims the decree is too vague.

U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers earmarked 2½ days this week to hear why the group should be able to argue for changes in the decree. The ACLU and the School District want the decree to stay as it is.
Attorney Horatio Mihet, who represents the Christian Educators, argued Wednesday that the decree fails to draw a distinction between what teachers can say and do in their official capacity as educators and what they can do as private citizens while in the classroom or attending school events.

"The only reason we are here is to ask for a seat at their table," Mihet said. "We are not trying to turn back 50 years of case law and allow (Christian Educators) members to return to the classroom and turn children into little disciples."

In more than two hours of testimony, Kirsch, a Christian Educators member since 1994, said the consent decree has made her uneasy about what she can and cannot say at school and at school events.
She said she's afraid to say, "God bless you," to a fellow teacher. She's not sure if she's allowed to let students talk about their baptisms in speeches to classes.

"My Christian beliefs are under attack and ... I wasn't able to do the things that I could do before the consent decree," she testified.
Kirsch's testimony came on the first day of a hearing in which a religious educators group called Christian Educators Association International is asking a judge to allow it to participate in the revamping of the decree.

In August 2008, two Pace High School students sued the School District and Pace Principal Frank Lay, saying school officials routinely pushed their religious beliefs upon students.

Last May, the American Civil Liberties Union, representing the students, and the School District struck an agreement to end the long-standing practice.

Now, the Christian Educators, representing 11 district employees, claims the decree is too vague.

U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers earmarked 2½ days this week to hear why the group should be able to argue for changes in the decree. The ACLU and the School District want the decree to stay as it is.
Attorney Horatio Mihet, who represents the Christian Educators, argued Wednesday that the decree fails to draw a distinction between what teachers can say and do in their official capacity as educators and what they can do as private citizens while in the classroom or attending school events.

"The only reason we are here is to ask for a seat at their table," Mihet said. "We are not trying to turn back 50 years of case law and allow (Christian Educators) members to return to the classroom and turn children into little disciples."

In more than two hours of testimony, Kirsch, a Christian Educators member since 1994, said the consent decree has made her uneasy about what she can and cannot say at school and at school events.
She said she's afraid to say, "God bless you," to a fellow teacher. She's not sure if she's allowed to let students talk about their baptisms in speeches to classes.

Benjamin Stevenson, attorney for the ACLU, reminded Kirsch that the cross was on school property.

"You said you put it there to remind you of the Lord?" Stevenson asked.
"Yes," she said.
"It would also remind your students of the Lord?" Stevenson asked.
Kirsch said she didn't know.

The issue

Rodgers reminded Mihet several times to focus on the issue at hand of whether his client has the legal right to participate in renegotiating the decree.

The judge became testy with Mihet when he asked Kirsch to repeat how President Barack Obama ended a recorded speech played for students earlier in the school year. Conservative groups decried the president's speech as possible indoctrination.

" 'Thank you and God bless America,' " Kirsch recalled the president's words.
Rodgers interjected.
"Why would you ask that question, Mr. Mihet?" the judge asked. "President Obama is not an employee of the School District and is not subject to this order."