Bible suit settlement

ECISD trustees voted 5-1-1 Wednesday to implement a district committee of ECISD educators to develop an original curriculum in accordance with the Texas Education Code.

Ector County Independent School District trustees met in executive session for 30 minutes Wednesday to discuss a proposed settlement in a federal lawsuit over the district’s Bible course.

ECISD board President Carol Gregg, board Vice President L.V. “Butch” Foreman and trustees Dr. Ray Beaty, Doyle Woodall and Donna Smith voted for the settlement while trustee Randy Rives voted against the measure and trustee Fay Batch abstained.

Rives said he wasn’t completely satisfied with the decision.

The district was indemnified with the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools curriculum, he said, and the current curriculum is Constitutional, legal and defendable in court.

“I don’t know how well the people on the committee are at developing a curriculum of the same caliber that we have today,” he said.

The settlement seemed to be OK, he said, noting it allows the district to move forward.

Batch said she abstained because she wasn’t on the board when many of the decisions about the Bible curricu-lum were made in the past three years.

“I chose not to participate in the final process,” she said.

The settlement, which was formulated by mediator Hesha Abrams, defendants, plaintiffs and attorneys for both sides, allows the committee to create a new course without using a particular curriculum as the basis for the district’s Bible class, Abrams said.

“To me, that language very clearly provides parameters in which the committee has to work,” plaintiff David Newman said.

Also as part of the settlement, a multitranslation or parallel translation Bible will be the course’s textbook.

Newman said the district would need to finish out the NCBCPS curriculum this school year and then develop something for the 2008-’09 school year. That means the current curriculum won’t be taught in ECISD again.

“That means that they’re done in Odessa,” Newman said. “No incarnation of the curriculum will be able to insinuate itself back into the schools. They are done here.”

The committee must present a proposed Bible curriculum to ECISD trustees by June 1 as part of the settle-ment.

The settlement document outlines guidelines for the district committee, which comprises seven ECISD educa-tors from 35 to 62 years of age and between nine to 22 years of teaching experience.

As part of recent state legislation under the Texas Education Code, school districts across the state will have to evaluate their existing Bible curriculums prior to the 2009-2010 school district, Hiram Sasser, an attorney for ECISD in the suit, said.

“This is a process that every school can now model,” he said, noting he saw the settlement as a “win” for ECISD.

Foreman said he was satisfied with the settlement and the committee will give the district a chance to develop its own “homegrown” curriculum that many people in the community can be proud of.

Plus, he said a new curriculum will allow the district to get their Bible curriculum in line with state requirements.

“We’ll be the pioneers in setting the curriculum for the rest of the state,” Foreman said.

Beaty agreed the settlement helps the district meet the legislative requirements and allows the district to keep a Bible course.

“This left the control in the district’s hands, which gives the district the ability to move forward,” Beaty said.

Plaintiff Lori White said she’s happy the settlement means the current curriculum won’t be used anymore.

“That’s what I want … Teaching the Bible in the school is fine,” she said. “It’s just teaching that curriculum is not appropriate.”

According to the settlement document, the district committee can’t use any high school Bible curriculum as “its basis or any past or future versions of such curriculum.”

“They cannot teach it ever again,” White said of the NCBCPS curriculum. “The plaintiffs won, and we’re happy about that.”

Trustee Doyle Woodall said he liked that the Bible would be the course’s text and that the school board still has authority over the curriculum.

“I just never dreamed that anything would come from mediation that I’d be able to vote for,” he said.

Abrams, a 25-year mediator, said the mediation process helped morph the lawsuit from “lemons to lemonade” in that many plaintiffs and defendants started the process with separate approaches.

“It’s a pretty neat thing to take an intense fight and turn it into a model for the rest of the state,” Abrams said. “I’m pretty proud of everybody here. This is a pretty big accomplishment.”

Attempts to reach an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union were unsuccessful Wednesday.

Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said in a news release Wednesday afternoon that for the district and plaintiffs to settle on uprooting the current curriculum “confirms that the curriculum is deeply flawed and threatens the religious freedom of students.”

The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund found the NCBCPS curriculum to be “plagued by numerous factual errors, poor scholarship, plagiarism and a blatant religious bias” while reviewing the curriculum in 2005.

Religious studies professor Mark Chancey at Southern Methodist University in Dallas authored the study.

Newman said he plans to watch the ECISD’s committee’s work in a polite and non-intrusive way.

He hopes the committee would seek input from people who’ve been through the process of the NCBCPS curriculum discussions, approval and implementation.

After all, they don’t have much time to propose a curriculum.

“The committee will have to get very busy with its work,” Newman said.

In other business Wednesday, trustees unanimously approved to hire an internal auditor.

Trustees also discussed the 4-by-4 legislation, which was passed in 2007 and requires students starting with the class of 2011 to take an extra science and math to graduate.

Woodall said he has contacted a Houston attorney who told him about the possibility of a lawsuit over the 4-by4 legislation. Woodall said the lawyer said it’d be best to wait until 2009 to see if legislators address residents concerns about the legislation. ECISD attorney Mike Atkins told trustees that no class action lawsuits against the state have surfaced at this time.

But there’s the possibility for a lawsuit if the state doesn’t address people’s concerns in the 2009 state Legisla-ture, Woodall said.

“I think it will have a catastrophic effort on education in Texas,” Woodall said after the meeting.

How many students are enrolled in the Bible course this semester?

>> OHS - 16

>> PHS - 22

Source: ECISD Information Systems

Bible course timeline

>> April 26, 2005: ECISD’s board of trustees voted 6-0 to add a Bible elective for the 2006-’07 school year.

>> Oct. 18, 2005: ECISD formed a Bible Curriculum Committee of teachers and administrators to review possible curricula.

>> Nov. 10, 2005: The Bible Curriculum Committee held a public input meeting in which the majority of speakers favored the Bible Literacy Project.

>> Dec. 6, 2005: The Bible Curriculum Committee recommended both the Bible Literacy Project’s textbook and one by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools.

>> Dec. 20, 2005: Trustees voted 4-2 to adopt the NCBCPS curriculum.

>> Aug. 14, 2006: ECISD implements the Bible classes at Odessa and Permian high schools.

>> May 16, 2007: The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, People for the American Way Foundation and national law firm Jenner & Block LLP filed a federal lawsuit in Midland on behalf of eight parents and taxpayers stating the Bible course violates individual religious liberties.

>> May 21, 2007: ECISD trustees voted 6-0 to have Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute represent the school district at no cost.

>> July 2, 2007: ECISD filed an official answer and a Rule 68 offer of judgment to the ACLU and other plaintiffs asking them to settle the suit and accept a $500 offer each to walk away.

>> October 2007: U.S. District Judge Rob Junell requires both sides to go to mediation and pick a mediator.

>> December 2007: Hesha Abrams of Abrams Mediation & Negotiation Inc. in Dallas was chosen as the mediator.

>> January 2008: Both sides go to mediation in Dallas.

>> Wednesday: Trustees and plaintiffs reached a settlement in the Bible lawsuit. ECISD will form a committee to develop a new Bible curriculum without basing it on any particular curriculum. The new curriculum will have to follow the Texas Education Code and use the Bible as its textbook.

Who’s on the committee?

>> Angela Love, 37, a 12-year educator who works in the history department at Permian.

>> Joni Vincent, 52, a 16-year educator who serves as the curriculum coach at LBJ Elementary.

>> Elaine Smith, 48, an 18-year educator who serves as a supervisor in the ECISD special education department.

>> Brandon Cook, 35, a nine-year educator who currently teaches eighth grade at Bonham Junior High.

>> Caroll Skaggs, 62, a nine-year educator who teaches science at Bowie Junior High.

>> Todd Vesley, 47, a 22-year science teacher and coach at Permian. He’s currently the Permian boys’ gymnastics coach and dual-sports and girls’ sports athletic coordinator.

>> Morris Petty, 55, a 22-year educator and a world traveler who currently teaches World Geography at Nimitz Junior High.