Tag Archives: Public School

Christian Teacher Loses Suit Over Bible In Classroom

Christian teachers now have fewer rights to express their faith after a ruling form a New York judge.

Joelle Silver, a teacher who had displayed Bible verses in her classroom on motivational posters, a painting that included three crosses on a hill and a prayer box on her desk placed by the school’s Bible Study Club, has been told all of those items must be removed from the classroom.

Judge Leslie G. Foschio ruled that she could not proceed in her lawsuit against the Cheektowaga Central School District that her rights were being violated.  The judge did, however, leave open the possibility she could move forward in her suit on the basis of equal protection discrimination because only Christian items were forced to be removed.

The removal of her items came when the virulent anti-Christian group Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the school complaining about the Christian teacher.

School Blocks Christian, Conservative Websites

A high school student was researching gun control for a debate in his law class and discovered that his school was blocking conservative and Christian websites.

Andrew Lampart, 18, who attended Nonnewaug High School in Woodbury, Connecticut was using the school’s internet service because he wanted facts on both sides of the issue.  Then something happened when he tried to access the National Rifle Association website.

“Their website was blocked,” Lampart told Fox News.

Lampart when on to find other sites for pro-second amendment blocked.  Then while Democratic party sites were permitted, Republican ones were blocked.  Then the real shocker arrived for Lampart.

Christian websites were blocked.  The lockdown of websites that showed the gospel of Christ was so complete that even websites connected to the Vatican were shut down.  Even the official website of Pope Francis was blocked by the school.  However, websites linked to radical Muslim extremism were permitted as well as other religions.

When the student gathered his evidence and contacted the school, nothing was done by school administrators.  He had to approach the School Board who said they were surprised by the problem.

The school’s superintendent told FoxNews that there appeared to be a problem with Dell SonicWall, the filtering service used by the school.  She claimed that the school district did not filter individual websites but categories of websites.

As of this article, the Christian websites are still blocked by the school.

Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Case On Graduations In Church Buildings

The Supreme Court declined in a 7-2 decision to hear the appeal of a school district that held their graduation ceremonies inside a church building, allowing a lower court ruling to stand that holding such an event inside a church is unconstitutional.

The anti-Christian group Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit in 1990 against the Elmbrook, Wisconsin School District which had been holding their graduation ceremonies inside a non-denominational church facility.  The anti-Christianists said the mere existence of Christian symbols in the building meant the school was promoting Christianity over all other religions.

While multiple lower courts ruled in favor of the school district, the anti-Christian group continued to file appeals until the full 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a three-judge 7th Circuit panel and ruled in their favor.  The Supreme Court before their formal refusal to hear the case shelved the case for two years.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented from the majority.  Justice Scalia wrote that while a school district may have to act to soothe angry people, it doesn’t mean it’s the constitution’s job to soothe hurt feelings.  The justices also noted the flawed 7th Circuit ruling was in conflict with the Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, which stated that mere offense does not equate to coercion.

Student Defies School To Share Christian Faith

A student at California’s Brawley Union High School defied the school’s leadership during his graduation ceremony speech.

The school’s officials had told Brooks Hamby, the class salutatorian, he would not be allowed to make any reference to his Christian faith during his speech.  He submitted his speech three times to the school only to have it rejected over issues of faith.

“In coming before you today, I presented three drafts of my speech, all of them denied on account of my desire to share with you my personal thoughts and inspiration to you: my Christian faith,” Hamby said in his speech.  “No man or woman has ever truly succeeded or been fulfilled on the account of living for others and not standing on what they knew in their heart was right or good.”

Hamby also quoted Matthew 5:13:  “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

Hamby has been a leader for the school’s mock-trial team and also a U.S. Senate page.

School District Settles Suit With Anti-Christian Group

A Missouri school district has announced a settlement in a lawsuit with an anti-Christian group that claimed they violated the U.S. Constitution by promoting Christianity on the campus.

The anti-Christian American Humanist Association of Washington had filed a lawsuit in November 2013 against the Fayette School District on behalf of an “anonymous student” and “anonymous parent” who claimed the school wrongly promoted Christianity over other religions or no religion.

The complaint said that one of the school’s teachers prayed with students and that the high school’s principal announced weekly prayer meetings of a Christian group on the intercom.

The settlement was reached because the school said they did not want to spend more tax dollars fighting the anti-Christianists.  The school added that while they did find one allegation was accurate, most of the complaints from the anti-Christian group were false, misleading or deliberately taken out of context.

The judge in the case has banned the schools’ teachers from participating in prayer or other religious activities at student events and prohibits teachers from having religious materials in sight of students.

The anti-Christian American Humanist Associated celebrated their latest removal of Christians from public life.

“Public schools must uphold the separation of church and state,” remarked AHA Executive Director Roy Speckhardt.

North Carolina House Protects Student Religious Freedom

The North Carolina House of Representatives has passed a bill that would protect the rights of students to express their religion along with allowing teachers and staff to voluntarily participate in student-led religious activities at schools.

The bill, SB370, was presented to the House after an elementary school student was banned from reading a self-written poem about her grandfather.  The grandfather was a World War II veteran who often cited his prayers for protection as part of his stories of service.  The school said the student could not mention God.

The bill states that students may “[e]xpress religious viewpoints in a public school to the same extent and under the same circumstances as a student is permitted to express viewpoints on nonreligious topics or subjects in the school.”

The bill also prohibits any teacher from issuing a bad grade to a student because they may not like a student’s religious beliefs.  In addition, the bill includes protections for teachers and staff to be a part of student-led activities in schools that include religious worship.

“Local boards of education may not prohibit school personnel from participating in religious activities on school grounds that are initiated by students at reasonable times before or after the instructional day so long as such activities are voluntary for all parties and do not conflict with the responsibilities or assignments of such personnel,” the bill states.

The ACLU has taken issue with the bill.

The bill is expected to be approved by the Senate.

Virginia High School Graduates Defy ACLU

Graduates of a Virginia high school thumbed their nose at the demands of the ACLU that a song sung at graduations since 1940 be banned because it references God.

Students at Thomas Walker High School in Ewing, Virginia locked arms after receiving their diplomas and sang “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.”  The song has been sung during graduation since the school’s 1940 founding.

The ACLU had sent a threatening e-mail to school officials saying that students should be banned from singing the song, even at their own initiation, because the song makes a reference to God.

ACLU lawyer Rebecca Glenberg, in addition to wanting to remove any references to God from the graduation ceremony, also objected to a plaque of the Ten Commandments being displayed in a school hallway.  The administration responded to the anti-Christianist demand by removing the plaque and eliminating the song from the ceremony.

The students, however, chose to revolt and refused to let the ACLU deny them their Constitutional right to express their faith.

The students also rose and recited the Lord’s Prayer at the invocation because it had also been removed from the ceremony.

Oregon School District Offering Condoms To 6th Graders

An Oregon school district said children as young as 11-years-old will now be able to obtain condoms from the school with no questions asked.

The Gervais School District said the move comes after a survey of students said that 7 percent of high school girls had gotten pregnant and that 42 percent of the students said they “never” or “sometimes” used protection during sex.

“Over the past few decades, teen pregnancy in our community has remained somewhat constant, but higher than the board felt comfortable with,” Superintendent Rick Hensel posted online.  He said the board voted to include middle school students because of the closeness of the high school and middle school plus the fact some middle school girls have gotten pregnant.

Amita Vyas, a professor at George Washington University who directs the school’s Maternal and Child Health Program said that 6th grede is “incredibly young” to be giving out condoms.  However, she said that educating students and keeping them interacting with parents and teachers is a way to decrease teen pregnancy.

Anti-Christianists Enraged Over Principal’s Graduation Speech

Anti-Christianists are outraged that a principal of a Missouri high school spoke about the history of God in public life during his address to graduates.

Kevin Lowery, principal of Lebanon High School, told the graduates during a May 23rd commencement to remember that “God is still important” after the students were prohibited from praying at the event.

“In one of the most famous sentences in American History, taken from our Declaration of Independence, reads, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,’” Lowery said in opening the gathering. “This passage has come to represent a moral standard to which the United States should always strive.  And even though God is reflected in the very fabric of our nation, we are told that it is inappropriate and even illegal to mention God at high school graduations, let alone say a prayer.”

Lowery then asked those in the room to hold a minute of silence.

“[J]ust in case you’re interested, during my moment of silence, I gave thanks to God for these great students, their parents, their teachers, and for this community,” he said after the moment of silence, causing the room to erupt in applause.

“Oh, I’m not finished,” he continued. “I asked God to protect these students as they go their separate ways into the world. I asked God to avail Himself in every possible way.  I asked God to watch over them, to protect them, and to bless them with self-fulfillment, with compassion, inner peace, and personal prosperity. Thank you for indulging the thoughts I had during my moment of silence. And yes, God is still important, and let us not ever forget it.”

The school district has reported that anti-Christianists have sent angry messages to the school after news reports of the principal’s comments reached the internet.  The complaints have come from people who do not live in the community and did not attend the ceremony.

High School Award Ceremony Features Profanity; Sex Toys

A teacher for the drama program at Bellingham Washington High School has issued a formal apology after the awards ceremony for the program included profanity, a box of sex toys and even jokes about pedophile priests.

Teri Grimes, a teacher of over 30 years who is scheduled to retire at the end of this school year, reportedly used profanity and told a joke about a priest wanting sex with children.

A parent in the audience sent an e-mail to KOMO television about the events that occurred at the ceremony in the school’s auditorium.  The woman was there with her 17-year-old daughter who will graduate on June 6th.  The television station kept the parent and child’s names secret until after graduation.

The event featured sexually oriented awards, including giving a sex toy to the boy who voted as the “horniest stud.”

“I deeply apologize for some very inappropriate comments and actions made during our drama students’ end-of-the-year awards ceremony,” Grimes wrote in her apology.  “This is not representative of our students who take such great pride in their school and respect one another. Much of the evening was a great celebration of their work. However, as a teacher and the club’s leader, I take full responsibility and am extremely sorry.”