The Freedom From Religion Foundation has made a Ohio public school teacher stop sermonizing to her students.
Green Middle School Kelli Hunka was assigning religious projects to her students every month. In January, for instance, she had students “write and illustrate a prayer for the new year,” while this month, she asked students to “illustrate Isaiah 11:6.”
“Public schools may not endorse religion over nonreligion, or one religion over another,” FFRF Legal Fellow Ryan Jayne wrote in early March. “In these journal assignments, Hunka included assignments from the Christian bible, but from no other religious texts. These assignments are not part of a study of comparative religion or the history of religion, but rather provide lessons in Christianity.”
FFRF asked for a guarantee from Green Local Schools that this unconstitutional religious messaging in a public school would halt.
And it recently got that pledge.
Hunka “has been instructed not to use any materials containing the religious references mentioned in your letter,” Mary Jo Shannon Slick, legal counsel for the schools, recently replied, adding that Hunka had assured Green Local Schools Supervisor Jeff Miller she would abide by the directive.
FFRF is gratified by the promise.
“Teachers indoctrinating young impressionable minds in the Christian faith is reminiscent of the bad old days,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We’re happy that such misconduct has been ended.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a state/church separation watchdog organization with 23,000 nonreligious members nationally, including 600 in Ohio.
