Roseville, USA - It was a mistake and it won't happen again, Roseville Community Schools officials said Thursday about allowing permission slips for a Bible study class to be given to students.
"The mistake we made is we passed the slips out, and the onus should be on parents to seek them out," said Michael LaFeve, assistant superintendent of instruction for the school district. "It was probably passed out to students with other fliers and information for the week," he said. "It wasn't done intentionally."
Roseville school officials plan to meet on Monday to discuss how the slips were distributed and how to avoid repeating the mistake, LaFeve also said.
The district's response Thursday came the day a Muslim civil liberties organization based in Southfield sent Roseville Schools a letter of complaint.
"We're not out to punish anyone," said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Michigan. "I spoke with the school district's assistant superintendent. He apologized and said it wouldn't happen again. That's all we were after."
Walid said the council had received complaints about the slips from at least two parents with children who attend Huron Park Elementary.
The group's primary concern is parents may interpret that the school advocates sending their children to the Bible study class because the permission slips came from teachers, Walid said.
State law makes it illegal for any public school to advocate a single religion or congregation.
State law also allows parents to sign their children up for religious education classes held during school hours at off-site locations. Students can be excused from classes to study their religion for up to two hours a week, LaFeve said.
The flier that sparked the complaint advertises a religious class run by a Kalamazoo-based Christian organization called RBM Ministries.