Posted on 05/21/2008 6:01:20 AM PDT by SJackson
Some Plano students who are Jewish say they were pressured or taunted to pick up copies of the New Testament from school display tables during recent weeks.
Their parents have called for changes in district policies that allow outside groups to distribute materials on campus.
"Probably the one I heard the most was, 'If the Bible touched you, like, will you burn or something?' " said Jeffrey Lavine, 16, a sophomore at Vines High School. "I sort of played it down as a joke and everything, which it was, but it was definitely a meaner comment than what we're used to."
Plano officials said they pulled aside some students to talk about respect and tolerance after the recent complaints, but no students have been disciplined.
The New Testaments were part of unmanned displays set up by Gideons International, a nondenominational Christian group that has visited a dozen Plano schools in recent months.
District officials said a judge's order prevents them from excluding groups based on their beliefs.
The ruling stems from a 1999 lawsuit in which parents claimed officials stopped them from handing out information that was critical of a district math program, said Superintendent Doug Otto.
"As long as some people have access to the distribution table, all people have access," Dr. Otto said. "That is the policy, and we're trying our best to make people aware of it. We certainly don't want people to think we endorse one religion over another."
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
>>“Why the Bible Should Taught in our public schools.<<
Taught, yes. Set up a table and distribute, no.
Just like Mastercard, Pepsi, Coca-Cola etc.
NO outside distribution in the schools. Start a class and teach it, but don’t set up a table and market it.
I was answering your original post where you questioned "Why is anyone allowed to distribute “outside materials” in the schools? While you did include marketing you did not exclude those who did not market something. It looked as if you were throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
OHHHH - what you said!
You actually uttered the forbidden words, “educate the kids.”
The edmacators union will get you for that.
Publik skool officials will be displeased!
Educrats fear you will soon ask for teacher testing and they know it is just because you are a member of the Right Wing.
;-)
Plano is not a small town in the south but a huge suburb of Dallas with very high income levels and such. It has a very diverse population.
It sounds to me that these are just some kids being jerks and has little to do with religion.
If you researched our public school history you would be enlightened to see who founded our schools. Just research each state, and who founded the first school. Check out Harvard, Yale, etc. They were all founded by godly men in the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I grant there were colleges and schools founded later, but they are only hollow shadows of the original founders, and today, most are ememies of the original intents of the founders. Just look at the products of such education today.
We’ve devolved into a society where victimhood is welcome, and strength of character is attacked. Parents no longer teach their children to hold their head up in the face of adversity. No, they sue at the slightest whiff of an offense. These kids only echo what they are taught at home.
‘that they will be judged by the content of their character, and not the color of their skin....’
I’m sorry. I had to live through the “Outside Distributors” marketing everything to my kids from the new soft drink to Krispy Kremes. Even the soft drink companies give the schools money to have their machines. There was a HUGE fight at my school about the parent group making money with a Pepsi machine next to the cafeteria.
In the 90’s my nephew got a Mastercard in High School because he turned 18 and they were there. Luckily we caught it before he was paying it off forever.
I don’t think marketing belongs in our schools. Period.
Your charity work is commendable!
>>If you researched our public school history you would be enlightened to see who founded our schools. Just research each state, and who founded the first school. Check out Harvard, Yale, etc. They were all founded by godly men in the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I grant there were colleges and schools founded later, but they are only hollow shadows of the original founders, and today, most are ememies of the original intents of the founders. Just look at the products of such education today.<<
What in the world are you talking about?
This has nothing to do with setting up a table and distributing a product to a school body.
Please stop speaking to me like I am anti-Christian. I don’t want anyone marketing to my kids. Period.
LOL!
Where in the Bible is our form of government - a constitutional republic - described or advocated? Weren't the governments in OT & NT times either kingdoms or empires?
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments
20 June 1785Papers 8:298--304
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions43.html
I lived in Columbus, MS because MWT, Sr. was in the Air Force.
We left to go live with our grandparents because we were repeatedly confronted on a very hostile basis -— by fellow students -— as “Christ-killers.” In particular, I recall being confronted in a school cafeteria about why we ate by ourselves and brown-bagged our lunches (we kept Kosher), with the explaination being given by one of the bullies that “they can’t eat with us because they were Christ-killers.”
Still recall a Mrs. Jones (4th grade) informing the class I was going to Hell, and was sent off during programs.
She would give tests on the High Holy Days (by accident), and the make up would be impossibly hard -— still got all A’s, thank you, b!@ch.
My sisters report (I was younger) that they saw similiar (albeit more in the “Mary Worshipper” and “idolitar” vein) taunting by some of the more radical protestants of Episopals and Roman Catholics.)
On base, we had NO problems. One foot off, we were fair game.
Aside from being taunted by blacks for being white, this was the only time I knowingly experienced actual discrimination in my life.
My first thought was that the Jewish kid could have pulled out a metal Star of David, touched the Christian kid with it and said that he now had a “Jew Tattoo” (haw haw)...
But this is Texas.
You have to assume that there are some kids there who are the lowest order of Po’bucker, who go stark raving violent nuts at the drop of a hat. I’ve met some like that, and would advise any sane kid to quietly withdraw, and take it up later with a responsible adult.
Importantly, it can be over anything, or even seemingly nothing. While most kids appreciate a witty rejoinder, the nut kids are psychological nitroglycerin. They will not just fight, either, they may seriously hurt or even kill in that berserker frame of mind.
In Columbus? Where Jews had settled in the 1830s and built one of the oldest Jewish congragations and Jewish cemetaries in existence MS? That Columbus?
OK, buddy, whatever you say.
Plano is about as rich a town in the United States, as there is; second only per capita to Midland, I think.
Rich, middle-class, suburb of Dallas. White, asian with a pretty decent population of Jews of the primarily Reform variety.
Middle class is engineers.
Yes, that Columbus.
This was some 30+ years ago, so perhaps much has changed.
I hope so.
Hands off other peoples kids!
Seems like schools are 99% indoctrination of one kind or other.
And some Catholics don’t like evangelicals. The road goes both ways.
That’s right. It’s only lately because of PC that everyone is suddenly a blasted victim!
I do also recall -— this was later reported by another SAC member -— we were long gone -— that there as a huge movement in MS to gather up and burn Star Wars figures and toys because “the force” was Satanic.
I am not disparaging all of MS, but it sure has some weird groups.
And they would be right. There IS only one way, through Jesus Christ.
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