Area religion class nets suit

The parent of a Huntington elementary school student sued the school district in federal court because of a religious education program the parent wants shut down.

Filed Wednesday by attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union in Indiana on behalf of an unnamed parent and her child, the lawsuit accuses the Huntington County Community School Corp. of violating their constitutional rights.

The woman, identified only as “H.S.,” is the mother of an 8-year-old, identified as “J.S.,” a student at Horace Mann Elementary School in Huntington. The elementary school offers third- and fourth-grade students a “release time” program for “By the Book Weekday Religious Instruction” through the Associated Churches of Huntington, according to court documents.

H.S. is asking a U.S. District Court judge in Fort Wayne to prohibit the Huntington schools from allowing the program to continue on school grounds during school hours and from providing the program with any assistance, such as the use of school utilities.

Both Fort Wayne and East Allen school districts offer similar programs at elementary schools. These programs have been protected by a 1952 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed students to receive religious education during school hours but not on school property.

Huntington’s program is voluntary. Classes meet once a week in mobile trailers near school buildings, and children who elect not to participate remain in their classrooms with school personnel, according to the brochure for the program filed with the lawsuit.

According to court documents, on Sept. 11, J.S. was taken from his classroom to the religious release time trailer and given a pamphlet about the program to take home to get parental consent before the program began Sept. 18.

H.S. did not give her child permission to participate in the program, and he and three other students were left behind in a hallway while a teacher walked the other students to the trailer, according to court documents. The four students not participating returned to their classroom when the teacher returned.

The church trailer sits in the school’s parking lot and uses the elementary school’s electricity. The students are escorted to the program by their teachers each week, and those who do not participate receive no school programming during the time the “By the Book” program meets, according to court documents.

The suit alleges that the school district violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by allowing religious instruction to occur on school property during instructional time, allowing the use of school utilities by a religious organization conducting religious instruction and by supervising and promoting the “By the Book” program.

Huntington County Community Schools Superintendent Tracey Shafer had not yet seen a copy of the lawsuit Thursday evening and declined to comment.

Challenges to school districts’ religious release time instruction have not often been successful as long as the programs are conducted with certain caveats in place and are voluntary for the children, said Ken Breivik, executive director of School Ministries in South Carolina.

The programs can’t use public money, but for the safety of the students there is often some form of cooperation or understanding between the group providing the instruction and the school districts, Breivik said.

“The government is not supposed to encourage or discourage participation,” he said. “That’s where it crosses the line, if it seems to do one of those two things.”