Powell River Board of Education trustees will be revisiting a policy that allows Bible distribution to grade five students at their November 20 meeting.
The move is in response to a letter from BC Humanist Association executive director Ian Bushfield. His letter challenges the board’s policy which allows for Bible distribution.
Bushfield also raised his concerns about secularization in BC schools to Education Minister Don McRae and to the boards of education in Chilliwack and Abbotsford which have similar policies to Powell River.
“Our association views this as an endorsement of a religious text by these school boards and has asked each to repeal their respective policies,” he wrote in his October 31 letter to the minister.
School District 47’s policy, which dates back to 1984, governs the distribution of special interest materials in Powell River schools. It states that grade five students can be given a copy of the Gideons’ New Testament Bible after a parent signs a permission slip.
Jeannette Scott, Powell River board chair, likened Bushfield’s concerns to the way some people get upset about school Christmas concerts.
“I don’t believe in extremes too much. I like to keep a middle way,” she said. “And I think that’s primarily the way the board will have its discussion.”
Bushfield wrote in his letter that Powell River’s and Chilliwack’s policies go against BC School Act section 76 that states, “All schools and provincial schools must be conducted on strictly secular and non-sectarian principles.”
The controversy began last month when Bushfield started looking through policies in other school districts after Richard Ajabu, a parent in Chilliwack, made a complaint to Chilliwack school trustees that the distribution of Bibles amounted to religious proselytizing. Ajabu’s concern was about the permission slip for an Answer Book his daughter brought home that was produced by Gideons, a Christian evangelical organization that promotes “a religious world view.”
Scott said the policy is primarily meant to stop the distribution of materials in schools that are demeaning to other groups.
“We as a board consider that each person has four quadrants. It’s very much with the first nations’ concept,” she said. “We support anything to assist in building a child’s spiritual self as well as his or her physical, emotional and intellectual self.”
