Miramar Faculty Angry Over Lease : College Allows Christian School on Campus

The trustees of the San Diego Community College District have agreed to lease land on the Miramar College campus to a school run by a Pentecostal church, a decision that sparked a vote of objection from angered faculty members last week.

Teachers at the 4,000-student community college off Black Mountain Road said they were startled to learn upon returning to the campus last week that the trustees had approved a $1,250-a-month lease to the Mira Mesa Christian School on Aug. 13 while they were on vacation. By contract, the faculty at the college is employed from late August through May.

Several instructors said that the presence of the Christian school will hurt attempts to improve and publicize the 17-year-old campus, a largely undeveloped plot that is home to bungalow classrooms, the San Diego Police Academy and acres of chaparral. One teacher said he believes that the school would be too close to an asphalt area where police cadets take driver training.

“We have an identity problem here,” said Robert Bacon, a political science and physical education instructor who is a former chairman of the department heads’ panel at the school. “Many residents in our local community don’t know we’re here.

“We need to do anything we can to let people know that this is a bona fide community college. To have the church school or anything like that on here will detract from that effort.”

Community college district officials said that the five-year lease to the school, run by the Chapel of the Rock, is a money-making venture that will improve the campus because the church will pay to bring sewer, water and electricity service to the campus and will leave them for Miramar College when the school moves into permanent quarters elsewhere. The $15,000 raised annually will be given to Miramar College administrators to spend.

“The board did it strictly as a money-making (venture),” said Louise Dyer, president of the trustees. “You know how short money is for anything.”

The district had the lease thoroughly checked by the county counsel’s office, which reported that there are no legal obstacles, such as a church-state conflict, said Damon Schamu, director of plant and equipment services.

“It’s not a church, it’s a private school, and schools are run by many different organizations,” Schamu said. “The lease specifically requires that no church-related activities be conducted on the campus.”

But Dorothy Simpson, president of the faculty senate at the college, said she opposes the school because it brings religious and public facilities in close contact.

“I’m opposed to the general philosophy of intermingling religion and public schools. Until I get further facts, I would oppose it on those grounds,” Simpson said.

The measure went through during the summer because church leaders approached the district in late May or early June, just as Miramar College faculty members were leaving for the summer, Dyer said. “There was no intent to slide it by them,” she said. She added that George Yee, president of Miramar College, assured the trustees that teachers would have no objection.

Simpson said she did not understand how Yee could speak for the faculty. Yee did not return phone calls to his office Wednesday and Thursday.

The Rev. Ron Shires, pastor of Chapel of the Rock and administrator of the school, said that he approached community college district officials about locating his school on the grounds of Miramar College after he learned that it would have to leave the First Baptist Church of Mira Mesa on Rickert Road because of a space crunch.

He predicted that the school will not open until the end of the year because of time needed to obtain utility permits from the city. In the meantime, two of the school’s four portable classrooms are being stored on the Miramar College grounds.

The school will house 85 students in kindergarten through the eighth grade, offering a full curriculum with a “real emphasis on their relation with God,” Shires said. The students will study the Bible each day, he said.

Shires said the school’s students are taught creation science but are exposed to evolution as a theory. Some literature that can be commonly found in public schools, such as “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, would not be allowed in the school because it contains profanity or would be considered immoral, Shires said. Mark Twain, however, will be in the library despite his “pokes at religion,” Shires said.

But the school will make no attempt to spread its views to outsiders, Shires said.

“We’re not trying to get the public school to teach the Bible, and we’re not going to be standing at the entrance passing out Gospel tracts to those who come in,” he said. “We’re not telling the state how to run its business. We’ve entered into a business relationship with a government organization that has some extra land.

“I see there being no conflict of church and state or anything like that.”

But to the faculty, the appearance of conflict is as important as actual conflict.

“My personal objection--and I’m not alone in this--is that it’s bad for the image of the school, because people will begin to think that Miramar College is a private religious school, and they won’t come to check us out and we’ll lose students,” said Greg Carrier, an English instructor.

On Aug. 18, 36 members of the 200-member staff voted 33-0 with three absentions to oppose the school, Simpson said.

Some faculty members have pledged to oppose the lease at Wednesday’s board meeting.