Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990 TAG: 9005180567
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From staff and wire reports
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG LENGTH: Medium
U.S. District Judge James H. Michael Jr. issued a temporary restraining order against the Shenandoah County School Board that applies to W.W. Robinson Elementary School.
The judge ordered buses used for the classes to be removed immediately from school grounds or adjacent streets and prohibited religious instructors from coming onto school property. He also prohibited teachers from encouraging students to participate in religious instruction or helping register them.
Shenandoah County schools are not the only ones that have run into problems with allowing religious classes to be held on school property.
In Botetourt County, the Weekday Religious Education Organization is planning to move half of its six trailer classrooms off adjacent school grounds.
Rex Kelly, association president, said that although no one has filed a lawsuit, "there have been complaints regarding the separation of church and state, and we've been working to resolve that."
In Pulaski County, the Rev. Preston Sartelle, chairman of the Pulaski Weekday Religious Education Council, said he has long feared such a lawsuit against his own program.
"We've known our ministry operates such a delicate balance," he said. "It wouldn't take much pressure to shut it down. It's such a delicate subject today."
Unlike the programs in Shenandoah and Botetourt, the Pulaski program buses children off school property entirely, to weekly Bible classes held in churches.
All three counties hold their Bible classes during school hours, excusing those children from school once a week for 45 minutes to an hour. Those who do not participate in Bible instruction generally remain in class or are given a library or study period.
Kelly, director of the Botetourt religious education program, said he was unaware of the ruling and that the decision to move the classrooms was not related to either the lawsuit or Wednesday's ruling.
Kelly said that by the coming school year, all of the classrooms - which include mobile classrooms and renovated school buses - will be on private property.
Some of those buses and classrooms had been located on what Kelly described as "unused right-of-ways," school driveways and other state property next to the schools. It was only in 1983 that Botetourt ended its practice of holding Bible classes in the school buildings themselves.
Kelly said he did not expect the Shenandoah County ruling to have any impact on Botetourt, since the classrooms are being relocated.
Kelly said that 80 percent to 95 percent of the county's fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders are enrolled in Bible classes, but he said public schoolteachers do not pressure students to join and do not give rewards to those who enroll.
The Shenandoah County lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, accused public school teachers of pressuring students to join the supposedly volunteer Bible classes.
The lawsuit said the children were given candy or other rewards for returning sign-up cards with the signature of a parent or guardian.
The suit was filed on behalf of a third-grade boy and his mother and sought $675,000 in damages.
The third-grader, the suit said, was harassed by teachers at the elementary school when his parents refused to allow his attendance.
The Shenandoah Weekday Religious Education Organization has offered Bible classes in buses or trailers parked on or near public school grounds since 1982, when classes were forced out of the schools.
Michael said he will rule later on the merits of the case and whether to issue a permanent injunction.
But in the order written Wednesday and filed Thursday, the judge said the boy and his mother "have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits. They have also shown irreparable harm. The balance of harms is strongly in their favor as is the public interest."
Michael said the school may continue to provide enrollment lists to the Religious Education Organization. But he said the enrollment cards based on those lists must be mailed to parents rather than distributed in classes.
Philip Stone, an attorney for the School Board, said last week that the board prohibits the abuses claimed by the ACLU. Stone said the board was unaware of the allegations until this month but acknowledged school officials have received isolated complaints about the religious program in recent years.
by CNB