School Accuses Church of Bias After Lease Denied

A Thousand Oaks Montessori school is accusing its landlord--a Baptist church--of discrimination for refusing to renew its lease because the school is a “non-Christian organization.”

The Montessori World Schools West--a day-care center and kindergarten with about 50 children--has been renting space from the Thousand Oaks Baptist Church of Conejo Valley since 1991.

According to a civil complaint filed by the school in Ventura County Superior Court, church leaders refused to renew the lease in 1994 on the grounds that the business arrangement was an “unholy alliance.”

The church also said the alliance was hampering its ability to attract new members, according to school attorney Michael Kwasigroch.

The lease disagreement came to a head last October when the church sought to evict the school from its property. Last week, an attorney for the school filed papers saying that the eviction notice was based on religious discrimination and was illegal.

Pastor Charles Bordonaro of Thousand Oaks Baptist Church said the issue is not about the religious affiliation of the school, but instead is a matter of priorities for the church. They need the space, Bordonaro said.

“We’re not at war with each other,” he said. “We coexist in a peaceable fashion side by side. We haven’t challenged them on the basis of what they teach. We just disagree on whether they have the option to renew the lease.”

The church’s position is not reflected in court documents, and its attorney could not be reached for comment.

The school’s director, Arlene Roepke, would not comment on the case, but in court papers the school is clear in its allegations:

“The real reason that Thousand Oaks Baptist Church will not [renew the lease] is that the church has decided that [the school] is a ‘non-Christian organization’ and the church simply does not wish to contract with plaintiff on that basis,” the court papers say.

Kwasigroch said that under a previous pastor, the church and school operated well together--the school even included a voluntary Bible class taught by a church member. But when that pastor left in 1994, the mood of the church leadership changed, the lawyer said. The decision not to renew the school’s lease was made after a meeting of church deacons that June, Kwasigroch said.

According to the school’s civil complaint, a church official testified in a deposition that the leadership made a decision based on scripture that it should not be “entering into unbiblical associations with non-Christian organizations.”

Under the terms of its lease, the school had the right to renew its lease for two five-year terms as long as it did not break the terms of the lease, Kwasigroch said. Those terms included a ban on teaching “the philosophies of humanism or ‘new-age’ thinking that is contrary to the church’s philosophy.”

While Bordonaro acknowledged that such language was in the lease, he said that was not the reason the church wanted to terminate the arrangement. The pastor also said that the option to renew the lease was not automatic, and that both sides had to seek the extension.

Kwasigroch said that although he felt the terms of the lease were a violation of anti-discrimination laws, the ban on New Age teaching is not the issue in the case.

“[The school] doesn’t do that anyway,” he said. “The point is that [church leaders] have changed their mind because we’re not a Christian organization. . . . That’s the basis of their action--that this is an ungodly group or whatever.”

Although Kwasigroch said the church was discriminating against his client on religious grounds, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said the anti-discrimination laws can cut both ways, meaning that the church’s religious rights are also protected.

“I don’t know because I’m not familiar with the case,” said Carol Sobel, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU. “But the Baptist church could turn around and raise its own First Amendment argument.”

If the church did want to end the lease on the grounds that the school conflicted with its religious beliefs, it may be able to do so, Sobel said.

The Montessori school case is set to go to trial in Ventura County Superior Court within the next couple of weeks, Kwasigroch said.