Charlotte, USA - The S.C. legislature has created a path to make religion part of the high school curriculum. Under a bill that became law Wednesday, school districts may grant credit for off-campus religious courses.
The practice is called "release time." Parents grant permission for their children to be "released" during school for privately run courses. The concept was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952 as permissible, as long as classes are off campus, no public funding goes into the program and participation is voluntary.
Lawrence Webb, president of the Upstate Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Spartanburg, said he didn't have objections to the idea as long as the Bible study didn't substitute for academic subjects.
The Clover, S.C., school district west of Lake Wylie has the only release time program in the Charlotte region. It gives a glimpse of how high school release time might work.
More than half the students in grades 3-6 in the Clover district leave campus once a week for a Bible study program. At Griggs Road and Bethany elementaries, more than 90 percent of the students in those grades participate.
Bible once taught in school
Children studied the Bible in York County public schools not long ago. Bible teachers visited classrooms in York and Rock Hill schools into the 1960s and '70s.State Rep. Herb Kirsh, D-York, says he remembers weekly assemblies for various preachers when he was attending school in Clover. (Kirsh, who is Jewish, said the program didn't bother him then, and doesn't bother him now; his family taught him to ignore it.) The Bible study continued into the '90s in Clover, though parents were asked to sign permission slips allowing their children to participate.
The district stopped the program in 1997 after receiving complaints. Parents and churches rallied to create an alternative.
Churches and other supporters donated money for teacher salaries, insurance, a school bus converted to a classroom, and another bus to transport students. Ross Love, chairman of the board for the release time program, said this year's budget was $90,000. The children don't have to pay to participate.
Under district policy, release time cannot make children miss core academic courses or more than 45 minutes of class a week.
"What we have going on is a good thing for the school and the community for the kids who want to be a part of it," Clover Middle School Principal Judy Krenzer said. "We don't foresee problems, and I don't want to create any problems."
How program works
Students in the program walk or take a bus to classes at a nearby church or the National Guard armory, or else they board the 22-passenger "Bible Bus," a mobile classroom. Third- and fourth-graders learn the Old Testament. Fifth- and sixth-graders learn the New Testament.
Program organizers would not allow a reporter or photographer into a classroom or onto the bus.
"It's not a good time right now," Love said.
Usually, a session opens with prayer, then teachers go through Bible stories and songs, said Carol Stanford, who used to teach the Bible in schools and now does so in release time.
The students left behind at school go to regularly scheduled activities, such as music, physical education or computer.
On the last Monday of the school year, 16 students from a fifth-grade class at Clover Middle School lined up with Bible teacher Donna Thomas, who is also the school's PTO president. They walked to the adjacent Clover National Guard Armory.
In the computer classroom down another hall, six other students from the class filled out worksheets on word processing.
Chance to learn Bible
Some students would never learn the Bible or know what it means to be Christian if not for the program, teachers said."(Parents) don't mind them having it, they just don't take them" to church, said teacher Jenny Richards. "To me, that's so heartbreaking."
Rhonda Moss said her oldest son gave up the Bible class one year so he wouldn't miss computer class, but returned to release time.
Her youngest son, Evan, 11, said the Bible study is more fun than Sunday school: "It's just a lot more fun when you have friends there that you can listen to the story with there."
`Secular criteria'
About 270,000 students around the country participate in release time programs, according to the national Bible Education in School Time Network.
In grade school and middle school, though, course "credit" is not an issue. In high school, it is. Only two states -- Georgia and now South Carolina -- authorize high school elective credit for release time, said state Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, who sponsored the legislation.
Under the law, students can earn up to two elective credits in release time. Districts will decide whether to extend the credit, and they have to evaluate proposed courses on a secular basis, as they do when deciding which credits to accept for a student transferring in from a private religious school.
Webb, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said release time would be a wonderful place to teach the intelligent design concept of the world's origins: "That belongs in a religion class instead of a science class."
Jeremy Gunn, director of programs on freedom of religion and belief for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, wondered whether the "secular criteria" provision would mean government gets to say what a church teaches.
"I don't understand why religious people would want a course taught on secular criteria, any more than a scientist would want his research to be evaluated on religious criteria," he said. "If they want to be teaching their religion, that's great, but do they want to be doing it with state supervision?"
A difficult path
Getting programs into local districts could be a challenge, though. Lancaster County, S.C., schools spokesman David Knight said administrators there would have to spend a lot of time figuring out logistics -- accreditation, teacher certification, liability and so forth. Plus, they already feel pressure to fill school days with things students need for federal testing standards, he said.
Clover would seem to have potential interest. The 1,000 Clover elementary and middle school students who take release time classes make up about 15 percent of all S.C. students in such programs. And this past school year, about 40 high school students met voluntarily for prayer before school on Thursday mornings, said student Sarah Drechsler, 15.
Barbara Parrish, assistant superintendent at Clover, said the district would discuss a high school program if an organization proposed one. Love said the Bible study board would look at it, though nothing is likely to happen in time for this fall.
Kim Drechsler, whose four children all went through the Clover program, said she was surprised the state would allow credit for a religious course.
"The problem in high school, you're trying to academically earn points and keep your grades up and you may not be able to choose that activity when you play sports or chorus or band," she said.
Her daughter, Sarah, said she'd take a Bible class over anything else except for chorus:
"It's just extra time to study the Bible in school, instead of just once a week at Sunday school."