Closed door Bible class

ECISD administrators adhere to an “unwritten” policy that only parents of current Bible curriculum students may sit in on the course.

Ector County Independent School District’s Bible curriculum came under fire again Wednesday when 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 claiming the Bible course violates individual religious liberties.

The suit, filed Wednesday in Midland federal court calls for ECISD to drop its Bible course. The course was implemented in August.

Joe Gallegos, deputy superintendent of accountability, curriculum and instruction, said no written board policy is in place to keep community members and the media out of the Bible classrooms. Instead, Gallegos said it’s an unwritten policy that’s been understood by others since the course’s implementation.

Allowing people other than parents of current students in the class could possibly affect the students’ learning and the teachers’ lessons, he said.

“It has such potential to be disruptive to instruction if it’s open any day and every day,” Gallegos said.

According to the lawsuit, some comments from administrators and trustees during the time of course adoption and implementation revealed the “defendants’ impermissible purpose in adopting” the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools.

The suit states “the Board and ECISD school officials manipulated established policy and rigged the process to select the National Council curriculum.”

In addition, the suit also states how the board approved a Bible Curriculum Committee in 2005. The suit states, “over the objection of some of the committee’s members, (ECISD Superintendent Wendell) Sollis instructed the Committee that it should offer not one (as originally planned), but two curricular options to him … the committee was necessarily forced to present both the National Council curriculum and the Bible Literacy Project’s curricula.”

Before the board voted to adopt the National Council curriculum, one person told trustees, “Our country is going to the devil because we don’t have God in our schools,” according to the suit.

According to the suit, following the board’s adoption, “ECISD director of curriculum and instruction, Shannon Baker, exclaimed in an e-mail: ‘YES, WE ARE USING NCBCPS :) :) :)! HA! Take that you dang heathens!’ ”

With an unwritten policy blocking Bible class visitors, Gallegos said he realizes that could raise questions from others about its validity, but the action has the courses’ teachers in mind.

“I still have to lean on the side of instruction,” he said. “We don’t do it for all other classes, so at this point why would we do it for this one?”

However, once the 2007-’08 school year begins, Gallegos said it may be possible to have certain days set aside for people to sit in on the class.

This year, he said it’s been an adjustment period for all involved, particularly the teachers.

Those things — coupled with much of the Odessa community and nation’s interest in the Bible curriculum — caused ECISD administrators to close the class to the public, Gallegos said.

(The class has also been closed to the media. Prior to Sollis’ promotion to superintendent and the hiring of Gallegos, OA reporters have sat in on ECISD classes.)

When contacted Friday, some of the board trustees — named in the lawsuit along with ECISD Superintendent Wendell Sollis — didn’t know other community members couldn’t view the course at either Odessa High or Permian.

Trustee L.V. “Butch” Foreman III said he didn’t understand why people would want to single out the Bible classes.

“I think it would be helpful if you had a child in the class,” he said. “We don’t want it to be a circus or a dang parade in there.”

If someone wanted to sit in on the Bible class they should audit all courses while they are at the school, Foreman said.

“If you’re so interested in the children’s’ education, why don’t you go to English, math and history classes too?” he asked. “See if (we) can’t improve them all.”

Trustee Doyle Woodall said he wasn’t aware of any policy barring people from the Bible classes.

“I don’t know that they are. I don’t know that they aren’t,” he said. “I can’t comment on something I don’t really know anything about.”

Efforts to reach Sollis, ECISD Board President Randy Rives and trustees Renda Berryhill, Ray Beaty, Donna Smith and Carol Gregg were unsuccessful Friday.

Gallegos said while the unwritten policy is followed, parents of current students may sit in or ask for class materials such as the course syllabi.

“If you are a parent of a student in that class, you can come in anytime you want to,” Gallegos said.

ON THE RECORD

Here are some excerpts from the lawsuit against ECISD:

>> The defendants adopted the Bible Course with the primary purpose of advancing religion generally and a specific religious interpretation of the Bible particularly, and the Course has the primary effect of promoting, advancing, and endorsing religion generally and a particular set of religious beliefs specifically.

>> The NCBCPS curriculum does not teach the Bible in an “objective” manner, as required by the Constitution … Instead, the NCBCPS curriculum presents its own particular viewpoints and conclusions regarding important issues of biblical interpretation and authorship as though they were the only possible correct viewpoints.

>> … in a lesson purporting to teach interpretive literary form, Course materials characterize Roman Catholic beliefs in the transformation of communion bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ as “warped” thinking brought on by “mysticism.”

>> As described in Course materials and letters sent to parents, the ECISD Bible Course is taught as a “history class with primary emphasis on the text of the King James Version of the Bible as a historical document.”

>> In many instances, the Bible Course, implementing the NCBCPS curriculum, advocates particular religious viewpoints to guide the lives of students.

>> The Bible Course repeatedly advocates a one-sided and unchallenged view of the role of religion in America. The clear message to students is that America’s Constitution and laws were intended to promote particular religious values, and should be interpreted from a specific religious perspective.

>> The Defendants’ authorization, offering, and teaching of the Bible Course impermissibly conveys a message of endorsement of religion generally and a particular interpretation of one form of Protestant Christianity specifically.