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Friday, March 21, 2008

West Texas school district reaches settlement with ACLU over Bible course

In 2005, the Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, Texas, started offering an elective course on the Bible. Last May, the course was challenged in lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way on behalf of eight local parents, but a settlement has been reached that will allow the district to continue teaching the course with a new curriculum, reports Ruth Campbell of The Midland Reporter-Telegram.

The two sides reached an agreement that says the district cannot use "any existing high school Bible curriculum as its basis, or any past or future versions of such curriculum," and instead must form a committee of seven educators to author a new curriculum, Campbell reports. The classes —in which 38 students were enrolled at Odessa and Permian high schools — had been using the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, which has been criticized for being too fundamentalist.

"The settlement, which the board overwhelmingly adopted, prohibits the (district) from teaching Bible course using the National Council curriculum," Judith E. Schaeffer, legal director for People for the American Way in Washington, D.C., told Campbell. "The goal of the lawsuit was achieved in this settlement. This is the relief plaintiffs were asking for in the litigation." "We will all be monitoring this," she added. (Read more)

The new curriculum must be delivered by June 1, and the Odessa American said in a editorial the committee members are up for the job. The newspaper also said it hopes the effort is worth the hassle for class that has struggled to draw many students. "We wish the committee good luck in creating something that will satisfy all parties in the dispute," the newspaper writes in an editorial. "This is an issue that has been emotional and exhausting for a lot of community members. And it really served as a distraction to the overall goal of improving the quality of education in all areas." (Read more)

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