A school board policy violation, regarding religion, allegedly happened at Wynn Habersham Elementary School.
“Recently, an incident occurred at Wynn Elementary School in December 2022, where it was reported that members of Stanfield Church of God distributed stuffed animals with attached prayer cloths, and prayer cloths were placed in three different locations within the school,” said Campbell County Director of Schools Jennifer Fields. “Additionally, it was reported that members of Ride Royal Blue distributed Christmas items and led students in prayer. The principal, Danny Sheckles, was immediately informed of these violations and took swift action to rectify the situation, ensuring that the actions were in compliance with board policy and the principles of church-state separation.”
According to school board policy regarding prayer, “There shall be no school-sponsored or school-directed public prayer at any school-sponsored or school-directed activity, but a period of silence may be observed. The teacher of the first class of each day shall call the students to order to observe a moment of silence. No other action shall be taken by a teacher other than to maintain silence during this time.”
School board attorney Dail Cantrell said at this month’s school board meeting: “You cannot have an assembly that is led by a member of any particular faith or religion at your school. It’s just not allowed. OK? There’s no exception that gives it. There’s no way around it. That is an illegal act. You cannot put up prayer cloths. You cannot put up a prayer list, even if a student wants to go to a white board and say, this month we want to pray for these four students, that would not be allowed.”
There is Bible Release Time as an option where students go off site for religious instruction.
“What The Elgin Foundation requested and what you all granted was to allow area churches to set up transportation to take the children from the school to an off-site facility, which is allowable under Bible Release Time,” Cantrell said. “And as long as it’s not done with your all’s dollar, the taxpayer’s dollar, and then you all don’t do anything and the church has a church bus that comes at a designated time, takes the children off campus, they’re free to do anything that the parents are comfortable with doing for one hour per week.”
The Elgin Foundation requested that Bible Release Time not interfere with instruction time for education.
“They also suggested that you limit it to elementary and middle school because logistically, it was kind of impossible to do it at the high school level,” Cantrell said. “And that’s pretty much where we are. Well, you had a couple of instances where I don’t think any ill will was intended. I think it was just people trying to accommodate their area churches and allow them to come in, and from what Director Fields has told me, some of the boundaries were crossed. And she and I have had some lengthy discussions about it.”
Cantrell said a pastor or a youth minister is allowed to eat lunch at a school.
“What the youth minister or the pastor can’t do is they can’t proselytize,” Cantrell said. “So they can make an appearance there. They can talk to the kids, get to know them, but they can’t do things like give their testimony, share their faith. They can’t invite them to events that are being done, but it’s a nice way and a lot of youth pastors will do that just because it develops a relationship with the student.”
Teachers can wear a cross and read a Bible during break, he said.
“What a teacher cannot do would be read a Bible verse and have a prayer within the school,” he said. “You can also talk about the religions and the comparative religion and The Bible in class. For example, your three major faiths — your Islamic faith, your Jewish faith and your Christian faith — all began at Abraham. They all were together at that point, and to understand western civilization, you need to have a working knowledge of where the three-way split occurred because that’s where we have a lot of controversy. A class-led discussion in a social studies class that talked about the formation of the Islamic church, the continuation of the Jewish church and the formation of the Christian faith would be totally acceptable, but you could not then say, but Jesus Christ is the only true way to heaven, crossed the line, make sense?”
