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S.D. elementary at center of dispute
By Helen Gao
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 2, 2007
A San Diego public school has become part of a national debate over religion in schools ever since a substitute teacher publicly condemned an Arabic language program that gives Muslim students time for prayer during school hours.
Carver Elementary in Oak Park added Arabic to its curriculum in September when it suddenly absorbed more than 100 students from a defunct charter school that had served mostly Somali Muslims.
After subbing at Carver, the teacher claimed that religious indoctrination was taking place and said that a school aide had led Muslim students in prayer.
An investigation by the San Diego Unified School District failed to substantiate the allegations. But critics continue to assail Carver for providing a 15-minute break in the classroom each afternoon to accommodate Muslim students who wish to pray. (Those who don't pray can read or write during that non-instructional time.)
Some say the arrangement at Carver constitutes special treatment for a specific religion that is not extended to other faiths. Others believe it crosses the line into endorsement of religion.
Supporters of Carver say such an accommodation is legal, if not mandatory, under the law. They note the district and others have been sued for not accommodating religious needs on the same level as non-religious needs, such as a medical appointment.
Islam requires its adherents to pray at prescribed times, one of which falls during the school day.
While some parents say they care more about their children's education than a debate about religious freedom, the allegations – made at a school board meeting in April – have made Carver the subject of heated discussions on conservative talk radio. District officials have been besieged by letters and phone calls, some laced with invective.
The issue has drawn the attention of national groups concerned about civil rights and religious liberty. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, Anti-Defamation League, American Civil Liberties Union and the Pacific Justice Institute are some of the groups monitoring developments in California's second-largest school district.
Among the critics is Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel with the nonprofit, Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center devoted to “defending the religious freedom of Christians.”
He said he's “against double standards being used,” such as when there is a specific period for Muslim students to pray and not a similar arrangement for Christians.
Carver's supporters noted that Christianity and other religions, unlike Islam, do not require their followers to pray at specific times that fall within school hours, when children by law must be in school. Amid the controversy, the district is studying alternatives to the break to accommodate student prayer.
Capitalizing on what it considers a precedent-setting opportunity created by the Carver situation, the Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute has offered to help craft a districtwide “Daily Prayer Time Policy.”
In a letter, the religious-rights organization urged the district to broaden its accommodations to Christians and Jews by setting aside separate classrooms for daily prayer and to permit rabbis, priests and other religious figures to lead children in worship on campuses.
A lawyer representing the district said those ideas would violate the Constitution's prohibition against government establishment of religion.
The uproar over Carver comes as schools across the country grapple with how to accommodate growing Muslim populations. In recent weeks, the University of Michigan's Dearborn campus has been divided over using student fees to install foot-washing stations on campus to make it easier for Muslim students to cleanse themselves before prayer.
“These things are surfacing more and more in many places where large communities of Muslims are coming in and trying to say this is our right,” said Antoine Mefleh, a non-Muslim who is an Arabic language instructor with the Minneapolis public schools.
His school allows Muslim students to organize an hour of prayer on Fridays – Muslims typically have Friday congregational prayers – and make up class work they miss as a result. During the rest of the week, students pray during lunch or recess.
The San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations supports the Carver program.
“Our country is transforming demographically, religiously,” said Edgar Hopida, the chapter's public relations director. “Our country has to now accommodate things that are not traditionally accounted for before.”
Carol Clipper, who is the guardian of two grandchildren enrolled in the school's Arabic program, said she believes students should be “given the freedom” to pray. Clipper is Christian, and her grandchildren are being raised in both Islam and Christianity.
“I take them to the mosque and they go to church with me,” she said.
Another parent, Tony Peregrino, whose son is not in the Arabic program, said he's OK with the Muslim students praying. What he cares about, he said, is that teachers are doing their job, and his son's education is not affected.
Courts have ruled on a series of school prayer cases over the past half-century, but legal scholars say a lack of clarity remains.
“This is an area where the law is notoriously erratic,” said Steven Smith, a constitutional law professor at the University of San Diego.
Voluntary prayers by students are protected private speech, the courts have said. That means students can say grace before a meal and have Bible study clubs on campus, and several San Diego schools do. Public school employees, however, cannot lead children in prayer on campus.
Students also can be excused for religious holidays, such as Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, and Good Friday during Holy Week.
The federal Equal Access Act requires that extracurricular school clubs, religious and non-religious, be treated equally.
San Diego Unified was sued in 1993 when it denied a University City High School student's request to hold lunchtime Bible fellowship. The court found the district discriminated against religion, because it allowed secular clubs to meet during lunch.
Brent North, a lawyer retained by the district to address concerns related to the Carver program, said the district learned from the University City High case to be “careful about restricting students' right to their own private religious expression, including when it's on campus.”
The district cites Department of Education guidelines on prayer:
“Where school officials have a practice of excusing students from class on the basis of parents' requests for accommodation of non-religious needs, religiously motivated requests for excusal may not be accorded less favorable treatment....”
“What is unique about this request is the specificity of the religious requirement that a prayer be offered at a certain time on the clock,” he said.
North went on to say, “The district's legal obligation in response to a request that a prayer must be performed at a particular time is to treat that request the same as it would treat a student's request to receive an insulin shot at a particular time...”
“Some accommodation has to come from both sides,” he said. “I just tell them prayer is good. Class is good, too. Your time is precious. You have to come to an agreement with them without making a big fuss. If you want to pray, I understand, but I don't want to interrupt the class too much.”
Muslim Prayer sanctioned in San Diego school
If Christians can't send their kids to school and get a Christian education on the peoples dime, then Muslims shouldn't be able to too.
This is another reason for homeschooling.
im sorry but i thought the aclu was supposed to prevent crap like this from happening?
Honestly I don't care what they support or don't support. They tend to be slanted in the cases they take.
Help me out here. Where I live there's no issue about prayer or religion in schools so I'm a bit confused about the problem.
If Muslims are required to pray at certain times and they do so in a break then what's the problem? They're praying, they're not receiving a religious education by the state. It's like getting a recreation break or for those at work who smoke getting a smoking break. I just see it as a reasonable accommodation of religious needs.
Now, I wonder if a Jewish student at a non-Jewish school is permitted to take religious holidays or would that be too much?
I don't suppose Shabbat would be a problem because school would finish before sundown I would think.
Help me out here. Where I live there's no issue about prayer or religion in schools so I'm a bit confused about the problem.
If Muslims are required to pray at certain times and they do so in a break then what's the problem? They're praying, they're not receiving a religious education by the state. It's like getting a recreation break or for those at work who smoke getting a smoking break. I just see it as a reasonable accommodation of religious needs.
Now, I wonder if a Jewish student at a non-Jewish school is permitted to take religious holidays or would that be too much?
I don't suppose Shabbat would be a problem because school would finish before sundown I would think.
Help me out here. Where I live there's no issue about prayer or religion in schools so I'm a bit confused about the problem.
If Muslims are required to pray at certain times and they do so in a break then what's the problem? They're praying, they're not receiving a religious education by the state. It's like getting a recreation break or for those at work who smoke getting a smoking break. I just see it as a reasonable accommodation of religious needs.
Now, I wonder if a Jewish student at a non-Jewish school is permitted to take religious holidays or would that be too much?
I don't suppose Shabbat would be a problem because school would finish before sundown I would think.
As far as Jews taking Jewish holidays off... Knowing how public schools work, they would be counted as an unexcused absence.
My problem with all of this is that they discourage kids if they wear a Christian tshirt but yet do this. Or what about the kids told they couldn't hold a bible study after school hours or during lunch brake.
Help me out here. Where I live there's no issue about prayer or religion in schools so I'm a bit confused about the problem.
If Muslims are required to pray at certain times and they do so in a break then what's the problem? They're praying, they're not receiving a religious education by the state. It's like getting a recreation break or for those at work who smoke getting a smoking break. I just see it as a reasonable accommodation of religious needs.
Now, I wonder if a Jewish student at a non-Jewish school is permitted to take religious holidays or would that be too much?
I don't suppose Shabbat would be a problem because school would finish before sundown I would think.
339.065 Estimates of attendance; irregular attendance; excused absences. (1) In estimating regular attendance for purposes of the compulsory attendance provisions of ORS 339.005 to 339.030, 339.040 to 339.125, 339.137, 339.420 and 339.990, the principal or teacher shall consider all unexcused absences. Eight unexcused one-half day absences in any four-week period during which the school is in session shall be considered irregular attendance.
(2) An absence may be excused by a principal or teacher if the absence is caused by the pupils sickness, by the sickness of some member of the pupils family or by an emergency. A principal or teacher may also excuse absences for other reasons where satisfactory arrangements are made in advance of the absence.
(3) Any pupil may be excused from attendance by the district school board for a period not to exceed five days in a term of three months or not to exceed 10 days in any term of at least six months. Any such excuse shall be in writing directed to the principal of the school which the pupil attends. [1965 c.100 §281; 1973 c.728 §4; 1987 c.158 §57; 1993 c.45 §114]
The way Oregon Law is set up, it's up to the teachers and principal. I know first hand that they don't sign off on family vacations. I'm thankful to not be hold to their calendar any more. I can choose what days we take off and what days we do school work.
http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/339.html
Well it makes sense that it would vary from state to state, yet those guidelines would allow for religious holidays and such. So if parents take their kids for a month to Mexico or on a cruise for 10 days, do they return home to a truant officer?
Not in Illinois. A student that is absent without prior arrangements, for more than 9 days, must have the parent show proof that the child has been seen by a physician or truant officer must be called. No problem though, a month in Mexico. Excused and somehow the kid is to make up the work. Egads.
Well it makes sense that it would vary from state to state, yet those guidelines would allow for religious holidays and such. So if parents take their kids for a month to Mexico or on a cruise for 10 days, do they return home to a truant officer?
Not in Illinois. A student that is absent without prior arrangements, for more than 9 days, must have the parent show proof that the child has been seen by a physician or truant officer must be called. No problem though, a month in Mexico. Excused and somehow the kid is to make up the work. Egads.
Kathy, I dont think it should be up to a principal, but the parent what day, and how many days the kid is off, as long as its for a religious holiday, the government should get out of parenting kids, its not their responsibility, but these days, they are taking away the rights of parents.
.Read what I wrote. We agree, which was the point regarding religious holidays. As for determining whether or not kids should be pulled out for vacations? Hey, it's their kid. So they miss the unit on Civil War? Not my problem, I know it. Might be more difficult to make up that unit in algebra or geometry.
If they can read the text and comprehend all of it, great. Problem is for these kids, whose parents regularly pull them out, they don't have to do most of the work and aren't terribly motivated, for some reason they don't think school is terribly important. Could be what they are taught by their parents.
In Oregon there are no Truant Officers searching for kids. I know of several kids that just don't go to school but when they want to. It's sad but the schools here don't care.
