Action:

Contact People For the American Way Foundation if you believe right-wing activists are pressuring your school district to adopt policies or practices that violate the separation of church and state, or if such policies or practices have already been adopted.

Action Plan:

As a new school year begins, parents, students, teachers and school officials in many public schools will find themselves confronted by right-wing efforts to violate religious liberty through unconstitutional Bible courses, school-sponsored prayer and other means. These efforts often surface suddenly,appearing in a local school board meeting agenda or a new course curriculum. Have any of these practices been promoted in your district? If so, please let us know and we may be able to help halt these harmful, unconstitutional policies.

For example, we recently helped concerned families in Florida and Mississippi protect their children's right to religious liberty at school. Read below about just a few of right's campaigns to violate religious freedom in public schools. If your school district is confronting these or similar attacks on church-state separation, please contact us immediately.

Call or e-mail Steven Benford at People For the American Way Foundation: 1/800-326-7329 ext. 2394 -- or sbenford@pfaw.org

Help protect religious liberty - Watch for these schemes

• The far-right American Family Association (AFA) launched a national campaign last year to post the words "In God We Trust" in every public school. (Not coincidentally, the AFA is also selling "In God We Trust" posters, 3/$10.) School boards in many states are now being pressured to adopt policies mandating such displays, despite the clear requirements of the FirstAmendment prohibiting government endorsement of religion. While this language was adopted by Congress in 1956 as the national motto, there is a vast difference between putting this language on a dollar bill and putting it on a poster in public schools. When these words are directed at captive audiences of young school children in their schools and by their schools, they send an impermissible message of government endorsement of religion.
  
  
  • In August, PFAWF assisted local citizens in Collier County, Florida, in defeating a proposal that the school board require the display in all schools of "In God We Trust" posters donated by the Christian Coalition.
    
    
• Another Religious Right group, the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), is on a mission to gets chools across the country to teach Bible classes that present the Bible as true and from a religious perspective. While it is permissible to teach about the Bible in public schools if the Bible is presented objectively, courses that teach the Bible astrue or from a religious perspective violate this important constitutional rule.
  
  
  • PFAWF recently assisted local residents in Pinellas County, Florida, in turning back a proposed Bible course that used the NCBCPS curriculum.
    
    
• Many right-wing organizations encourage school districts to authorize prayer at school-sponsored events. Whether in the classroom, at an assembly or before a sporting event, captive-audience prayer is unconstitutional. Unfortunately, some public schools disregard this rule and violate the rights of students by authorizing captive-audience prayer in classrooms or over public address systems.
  
  
  • Thanks to the courage and vigilance of concerned families in Mississippi, PFAWF recently helped bring an end to school- sponsored prayer in two school districts in that state.

If you are concerned about these or similar problems in your school district, People For the American Way Foundation would like to know about it and may be able to assist you in opposing such practices.

Contact Steven Benford at 1/800-326-7329 or sbenford@pfaw.org