Religious issues spark public school discord

April 10, 2005

East Valley school officials have gotten religion this year — more than they bargained for in some cases.

An art show at Mountain Pointe High School in Ahwatukee Foothills sparked religious debate in January when a student submitted a portrayal of Jesus dangling from puppet strings.

Then Gilbert High School students walked out of their classes on Good Friday to protest the school staying open on a major religious holiday.

A Mesa charter school received a complaint in August for too much Christianity in one history textbook, while the Scottsdale Unified School District received complaints last week for not enough Christianity — and too much Islam — in another textbook.

"There will always be people who have different opinions about this issue," said Nicole Greason, spokeswoman for the Tempe Union High School District. "What is OK to one is unacceptable to another."

Besides the art controversy at Mountain Pointe, Greason’s district faced complaints from Catholics in 2004 over a school play at Desert Vista High School.

Fliers showed up on the Ahwatukee Foothills campus before opening night that accused the school of mocking the religious convictions of Catholics. In response, school administrators met with Catholic leaders and agreed to lastminute adjustments in the script.

"It’s impossible for them to ignore religion, and it may be impossible to please everybody," said Peter Gentala, legal counsel at the Center for Arizona Policy in Scottsdale. "But I don’t think it’s hard to ask schools to be neutral."

His organization represented one Scottsdale family in a two-year court battle against the Paradise Valley Unified School District over a ceramic tile that included the phrase "God bless."

The family purchased the tile in a fundraiser at Pinnacle Peak Elementary School, but administrators refused to display it on a wall with other tiles when they saw the religious message. A federal court eventually ruled in August that public schools cannot refuse to accept fundraising messages solely because they refer to God.

"It’s the kind of going overboard that schools are prone to if they’re not careful," Gentala said.

Jeremy Tedesco with the Alliance Defense Fund in Scottsdale said teachers and school administrators often have the false belief that religion cannot be discussed on campus. What the law says is that public schools cannot preach religion.

"Schools are jittery," Tedesco said. "But they have no reason to be unless they’re doing something unreasonable."

He said school districts will sometimes adopt textbooks that downplay religion "out of fear that they’re doing something wrong or out of a desire to avoid controversy." He said other schools look for textbooks that give equal space to every major world religion.

The result can be a distortion of history, he said, especially in the United States where Christianity has played a bigger role in national events than other religions.

"It’s hard to be equal in American history," Tedesco said. "There are no Muslim Founding Fathers."

Earl Taylor, principal at Heritage Academy charter school in downtown Mesa, said religious ideas and values that used to be taught in American schools have disappeared, and many schools today are hostile toward religion.

"We’ve departed so completely from our founding principles that we’re floundering," he said.

Taylor encourages Heritage Academy history teachers to address the topic of religion head on. A textbook at the school called "World History and Cultures in Christian Perspective" has drawn at least three complaints from parents over the years, including one in August.

But each time, Taylor has satisfied the state Board for Charter Schools that his teachers stay within the boundaries of the law.

"What we’re doing here is what the founders would want us to do, and it’s legal," said Taylor, who displays a painting in his office of George Washington kneeling in prayer. "We’re not slanting history; we’re not re-interpreting history. We’re trying to teach history the way it really was."

Other East Valley charter schools also include religion in the curriculum.

"It’s a big, huge engine that drives history," said David Batchelder, who operates James Madison Preparatory Academy charter school in Tempe. "It can’t be avoided."

His school requires freshmen to take a course in world religions that uses a textbook called "The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions." Batchelder said the book presents all world religions in a balanced manner, and he hears few complaints.