Florida —
In Tampa, Fla., FFRF took action against a religious assignment in the Hillsborough County Public Schools system. A parent reported that on Feb. 11, their child’s chorus teacher at Barrington Middle School required his entire sixth grade chorus class to write the following sentence 50 times during class instructional time: “God destroyed the Earth by flooding seas for being evil and disobeying God’s commands.” According to the parent, the teacher gave the entire class the assignment as punishment for being disruptive during a previous class period, and the assignment was subject to class-wide enforcement until everyone had finished it.
The parent explained: “This incident made me feel deeply disturbed and alarmed as a parent. I was especially troubled that the sentence students were forced to write effectively equated the authority of the teacher with God’s authority and labeled normal sixth-grade behavior as ‘evil.’ This framing is emotionally manipulative, inappropriate and harmful for children, particularly when imposed by an authority figure in a public school setting.”
“Here, [the teacher] reportedly admitted to forcing his entire sixth grade chorus class to write a religious declaration, and he did not provide his students with any context as to why or how this sentence was possibly relevant to chorus,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the school district’s legal counsel.
FFRF’s work paid off. The Hillsborough County Public Schools parent informed FFRF that the principal at Barrington Middle School emailed her confirming that the assignment would be discontinued and that the teacher would not force students to write religious messages going forward.
