PORT HUENEME : Complaints Close School Bible Club
A Bible club at a Port Hueneme middle school disbanded after complaints that it was contrary to the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.
Several teachers at E.O. Green Middle School complained to the California Teachers Assn. and the American Civil Liberties Union about the new Bible club, said Vern Houser, an assistant superintendent for the Hueneme School District.
David Arends, an eighth-grade math teacher, served as adviser for the club’s one meeting, which was attended by one student. Arends resigned at the second meeting last Wednesday.
Although a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June allowed students to form religious clubs on campus after school, the ACLU contended that the Green School situation was different.
The June ruling was for high school students, not for middle schools where children are younger, more impressionable and more likely to fall under peer pressure, according to a letter the ACLU sent to the teachers association.
District policy is that an adult, not necessarily a teacher, must serve as adviser for student clubs, Houser said.
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