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MOAB - Two elementary-school teachers who want to lead a Christian-based, after-school club on school grounds say the Grand County School District is violating their First Amendment rights by saying no.
Geoffrey Surtees, an attorney with Washington, D.C.-based American Center for Law and Justice, says recent court rulings and federal guidelines clearly permit teachers to take part in religious groups on school property - as long as it is clear they are not acting as public educators.
But the school district says allowing the teachers to lead the Good News Club would violate constitutional separation of church and state because they are still on the clock for the first 15 minutes of club meeting time. And leaders of all after-school clubs receive a $15 stipend per club meeting that is partly funded through public monies.
Some 32 clubs, ranging from a Spanish-language club to sports groups, meet weekly at Helen M. Knight Intermediate School beginning at 3:30 p.m., according to Principal Margaret Hopkin. The teachers remain on contract to the school until 3:45 p.m.
The issue arose in January after Konnie Pacheco and Paula Radcliffe submitted an application to start a Good News Club. The district said yes, but would not allow the teachers to serve as leaders. The club, which meets each Tuesday, held its first session on Feb. 7.
"If we did that, we would be paying these teachers to teach religion," said school-board President Kaaron Jorgen. "We cannot, under any circumstances, allow teachers to teach religion in the schools when public
funds are involved."
The district offered a range of alternatives to try to resolve the dispute, Jorgen said, including suggesting that Pacheco and Radcliffe hold club meetings at another location, or that they pay a small fee to rent space at HMK. This would resolve the issue, district officials said.
The district also suggested that someone who is not a public-school employee could lead the club.
But Pacheco, Radcliffe, and Radcliffe's husband Bernie, who teaches at Grand County High School, have a constitutional right to lead the club, says Konnie Pacheco's husband, Dick Pacheco, pastor of the River of Life Christian Fellowship in Moab.
He says the teachers are consulting with Surtees about filing a lawsuit against the district. Surtees' organization is a nonprofit legal group founded in 1990 by evangelist Pat Robertson.
Dick Pacheco said the three teachers have agreed to forgo the stipend, and Bernie Radcliffe has offered to start each club meeting since his contract time with the high school ends at 3:15 each afternoon.
"The school district has said they have to keep this 'clean,' " Pacheco said. "We refused the stipend. That's never been an issue. I would think that would solve the problem. But the district still won't allow them to lead it."
Good News Clubs, an outreach program for children aged 5 to 12, were developed by the Missouri-based Child Evangelism Fellowship to "evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish . . . them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living," according to the group's Web site. Good News Clubs meet in six Utah schools, and there are more than 2,200 after-school such clubs nationwide, according to the fellowship's spokesman, Myron Tschetter.
Principal Jorgen said she worries that representatives for the teachers hope to "use Grand County as a test case" for forcing public schools to allow teachers to teach religion.
"It seems it's not about what's good for the kids; it's about adults trying to further their own agenda," Jorgen said.
Surtees called that notion "silly."
"This is about respecting the First Amendment right of teachers to do what they want to do on their own time," Surtees said.
But school-district attorney Blake Ostler says even if the teachers wait until after their school day ends and decline the club stipend, the district still could be sued for treating them differently than other club leaders.
"We're working harmoniously to find a solution," he said.