Pine Bluff clergy announces conference to advance Ten Commandments in schools

Local pastors are taking a lead role in making sure the Ten Commandments are posted in Arkansas K-12 and college classrooms.

Speaking outside the Jefferson County Courthouse on Thursday, the Rev. Jesse Turner, Pastors on Patrol leader and executive director of the Pine Bluff Interested Citizens for Voter Registration, announced a July 28 strategy session and conference to advance the Biblical laws will be held at the Donald W. Reynolds Community Services Center, 211 W. Third Ave. The leaders behind the conference will connect with the National Day of Prayer and others with the goal of advancing the work with what organizers call “proven tactics.”

The movement comes almost three months after Act 573 of this year’s state Legislature required the posting of the Commandments, which are listed in Exodus 20:3-17, in all classrooms. The law also requires administrative officials of state agencies to display the Commandments. The poster is to be displayed in a durable poster or framed copy of at least 16 inches by 20 inches.

“What we are doing here today in putting these things up in the schools, I believe this is the way for us to reach students regarding things they have problems with,” Turner said, with fellow Pastor on Patrol Alexander Watkins showcasing the poster. “We’re already in the schools in Pine Bluff and Watson Chapel, and we’re getting ready to go into White Hall. When we look at these Ten Commandments, we look at them as a means to discuss things with these kids, for the schools require ESSA, ESL and PBIS.”

The acronyms stand for Every Student Succeeds Act, English as a second language and positive behavioral intervention and support. Turner said the PBIS strategies are located in the Commandments.

The principles behind each of those systems are found in the Commandments, Turner said.

“We can give positive examples as ministers and pastors, and that’s what we want to do,” he added. “We want kids to see something to help them have better behavior.”

Act 573 also calls for an 11-inch-by-14-inch display of the national motto: “In God We Trust.”

Toni Rose, a director of legislative and member support with the National Association of Christian Lawmakers in Conway, said the organization will roll out a website to make the distribution of posters affordable.

“The Good Book tells us, if the foundations be destroyed, what will the righteous do?” Rose said. “We’ve heard that all our lives. But now we’re witnessing up close and firsthand what’s happened with our foundations being destroyed.”

The new law, which goes into effect Aug. 5, has already received backing from state Attorney General Tim Griffin, who on June 17 filed a motion to intervene in a June 11 federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Act 573, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. The Arkansas Civil Liberties Union Foundation, acting on behalf of seven families, named the Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville and Siloam Springs school districts in northwest Arkansas in the lawsuit. The plaintiffs say the new act, which is to take effect Aug. 5, violates the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“‘We the People’ is incomplete. ‘We the People’ is not fully expressing God’s workers,” the Rev. Arthur Hunt Jr., Arkansas director of the National Day of Prayer, said. “We the People of God … that’s our custodianship. And now from Arkansas across America, the Ten Commandments that’s been prayed for years to get into the heart of young people, classrooms and educators, that day has happened.”

The first day of classes in the Pine Bluff School District is July 28. The first day in the Watson Chapel School District is Aug. 11 and, in the White Hall School District, Aug. 13.

Turner and other members of the local clergy point to the Commandments for the recent success of Pine Bluff and Watson Chapel districts containing bullying and other acts of disruption.

“We have empirical data that shows in Watson Chapel the pastors on campus have reduced negative behavior by 33 percent,” Turner said, pointing to an anti-bullying campaign. “And, recently, we found out the 34th Avenue Elementary School (in the PBSD) have reduced negative (office) referrals by 70-plus percent.”

The July 28 conference will be open from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., according to the website. Registration is open at https://arkansas10.today; and is also available by calling Turner at (870) 730-1131 or visiting him at his office at the Reynolds Center, Suite 109. Tickets range from $60-$75, before processing fees, according to the website.

Organizers say they have a goal of registration from all 75 Arkansas counties during the first 10 days in July.

“Let’s stop putting water on a fire that God has started,” Hunt said. “This has gone through legislation, and now from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, it is ignited with fervency.”

This version CORRECTS the first day of classes in the White Hall School District.