Board Gives Teachers OK to Discuss Religion

“Religion” and “school.” Most public school officials try to avoid putting those two words together, but Moorpark school board members have embraced a resolution committing district instructors to teach about religion in the public schools.

With wording added to the resolution to recognize the moral convictions of nonbelievers, trustees of the Moorpark Unified School District unanimously approved the measure Tuesday night.

District officials emphasized that teachers will not begin preaching to students. The resolution just means, school board members say, that teachers in Moorpark schools won’t shy away from discussing religion in history, literature and social science classes.

The resolution was sponsored by school board member David Pollock, who said he felt the need to let parents and teachers know that schools are not meant to be godless institutions devoid of providing moral teachings or information about religion.

Pollock, who says he is not particularly religious himself, said parents should know the district is interested in students’ moral development. Teachers should also be clear, he added, that they have a certain amount of leeway in discussing religion in school.

“I think it’s important that we not shy away from these issues,” Pollock said at the meeting.

Although the policy only reiterates guidelines adopted by the California Board of Education, the resolution says that Moorpark students will learn about the “importance of morality and religion and personal convictions in human history.”

It comes close to a similar measure introduced last fall by school board member Tom Baldwin, who wanted the district to go further to ensure that the district set guidelines for religious expression.

Pollock said the resolution he wrote was also based on existing guidelines set forth by the First Amendment Coalition and the Freedom Forum, which are advocates of free speech. Those guidelines are, in part, meant to promote respect for religious diversity as well as understanding about religion.

But what impact the resolution will actually have on curriculum at Moorpark’s nine schools is unclear.

Jan Mierzwa, parent of a fourth-grader, asked the board whether the new policy would mean she could read a story in her son’s class from the Bible about the birth of Christ. Last December, Mierzwa said she went to her son’s class as part of a program to have parents read stories to students and was rebuffed when she tried to read from the Bible.

“I just wanted to read a Christmas story to my son’s fourth-grade class,” she said. “[The students] had heard about Santa Claus, but nothing was mentioned about the birth of Christ.”

Board member Clint Harper, who supported Pollock’s resolution after changes were made to ensure respect for those who do not believe in a god, said Mierzwa’s questions were typical of why any discussion of religion in schools can be controversial.

“With these things, the devil is always in the details,” Harper said.

The Bible is not banned from classrooms, Harper said Wednesday, but it can only be used as either a source document, or for teaching about literature and history. The point about the separation between church and state for schools is that teachers cannot promote a certain religious belief.

Mierzwa could be permitted to read a story from the Bible if it were part of a greater lesson that included discussions about other religions that have holy days during that same period, Harper said.