The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging the Clarke County Public Schools Board to nix at its upcoming meeting on Sept. 23 an unconstitutional proposal for a tie-up with a local church.
A concerned Clarke County Public Schools parent has informed the national state/church watchdog that the school district is considering establishing a “Community Mentorship Program” with Fellowship Bible Church that would allow the church to proselytize to district students. On Aug. 19, the church presented its proposal to establish a mentorship program before the school board. During the presentation, Scott Santmeier, the church’s pastor of local outreach, reportedly claimed that the intent of the partnership is not to proselytize, but it is clear from the church’s website that this is not true. The church’s mentoring partnership website includes a list of “RESOURCES TO HELP YOU SHARE JESUS,” and explains that “[a] mentor from Fellowship Bible Church is an Ambassador of Christ in an increasingly difficult world.”
Clarke County Public Schools must reject this unconstitutional and inappropriate partnership with Fellowship Bible Church in order to respect the constitutional rights of students and avoid government entanglement with religion, FFRF is advising. While a mentorship program for students is a laudable district goal, it cannot partner with a church and give them access to convert or recruit its students.
“Public schools may not show favoritism toward or coerce belief or participation in religion,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line writes to Clarke County Public Schools Board Chair Monica Singh-Smith. “By partnering with Fellowship Bible Church and providing its representatives special access to meet, talk to, and mentor students, the district risks displaying clear favoritism towards religion over nonreligion, Christianity over all other faiths, and a preference for Fellowship Bible Church over other churches.”
A partnership with Fellowship Bible Church would put Clarke County Public Schools in the dubious position of entangling itself with a church, in violation of the Establishment Clause. Clarke County Public Schools must respect that “the preservation and transmission of religious beliefs and worship is a responsibility and a choice committed to the private sphere,” to quote the U.S. Supreme Court. Parents, not public schools, have the right to determine their children’s religious or nonreligious upbringing. Likewise, the proposal would violate the Virginia Constitution, which explicitly bars citizens from being “compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever.”
And such a partnership would be a particular affront to the 49 percent of Generation Z members who are religiously unaffiliated, FFRF adds.
In order to protect the First Amendment rights of students, the Clarke County Public Schools Board must reject the proposal to establish a “Community Mentorship Program” with Fellowship Bible Church at its meeting on Monday, Sept. 23, FFRF reiterates in conclusion.
“A church cannot be allowed to propagate its sectarian doctrine in public school programs,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Students are young, impressionable and a captive audience. Their rights of conscience — and the right of parents to determine their children’s religious instruction — must be safeguarded.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members across the country, including close to 1,000 members in Virginia. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
