Not a creature is stirring at the Greene County Tech Primary School this week. That’s because students, teachers and staff have gone home for the Christmas break, of course, following two weeks of controversy.
It all started on Nov. 29, when school counselor Brenda Williams did what she had done for about 20 years, decorating her office bulletin board with a nativity scene and labeling it with the phrase “Happy birthday, Jesus.” Within a day one or two anonymous callers had complained to the school’s administration, and Williams was called on the carpet.
I don’t remember having a counselor in grade school, but maybe kids that age are under more pressure now. Certainly we didn’t have any arguments over bulletin board material.
Actually, the school had been contacted in 2009 by a national organization and advised to remove the nativity scene, but Williams didn’t get notice from then-Superintendent Rita Adams until shortly before school let out for the Christmas break. She put it back up last year without incident.
But this time Superintendent Jerry Noble contacted the school district’s attorney, Donn Mixon of Jonesboro, who advised him that the school would probably lose if the practice were challenged in court.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Therefore, Williams was advised that she had until 11 a.m. Dec. 2 to remove the display. Williams had been absent the day before, and she said she didn’t get the order until that morning. She start removing the nativity scene but admitted she might have been “dragging my feet a little bit.”
That’s when she was summoned to the office of Principal Sherry Vance and asked why the display was still up. She was then ordered to leave the school and not come back until Vance or Noble contacted her.
She left with the impression that she had been fired or suspended, but Vance called her on Dec. 4 and told her to return to work the next day.
Meanwhile, the controversy bubbled over in public, and citizens began coming to Williams’ defense. One of them was Jerry Halsell, director of a local organization called Trumpet for Heritage Ministry, who provided the Paragould Daily Press with memos from the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, contending that the display of a nativity scene in a public school does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
That’s what Mixon said originally could be the problem for the school district, but later he said he hadn’t been given all the facts on the case. Mixon knows school law and the First Amendment quite well, and he based his opinion on the belief that this was something similar to the school having a prayer at graduation or posting the Ten Commandments.
Mixon said that if challenged in court, the issue could be Williams’ intention as to decorating the bulletin board. If it was solely religious, the district would probably lose the lawsuit, he said.
To the contrary, Williams’ nativity scene was her own expression, similar to wearing a necklace with a cross or a sweatshirt showing a manger scene and a Christmas message. She wasn’t forcing her views on anyone, and her bulletin board wasn’t a school display.
Making her take it down could, in fact, be construed as a violation of her First Amendment rights.
Her job was never in danger anyway, according to the superintendent.
“I’m not going to fire somebody over Jesus,” he said. “There’s no way we would do that.”
But it was curious that she was sent home for a couple of days.
Anyway, by the end of that week Noble had received enough phone calls from people supporting Williams that he decided to let her put the display back up and risk a lawsuit. He called her on Saturday and told her, so last Monday she was back at the bulletin board.
“I think it’s due to the fact that most of us are Christians and this is a Christian community,” Noble explained to a Daily Press reporter. “We just decided if we are going to offend someone, we would rather not offend those who have Christian beliefs. The majority of people wanted us to take a stand, and that’s what we’re doing.”
In the end, the superintendent did the right thing but for the wrong reason. Whether the school offended someone is not really the issue.
The purpose of a school is to educate our children, and one of the ways we do that is to follow the laws of the land. Upholding the First Amendment rights of a teacher or counselor would be a good lesson, even at the primary school level.
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Roy Ockert Jr. is editor of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached at royo@jonesborosun.com.