Grandaughter was asked religious questions in a questionnaire at school.

[sunnystarr]

She's a 6th grader in a public school in Nashville, TN. She told me the teacher gave the class a questionnaire of about 60 questions. Many questions were to rate her in various ways. But she was also asked if she wanted to be like Jesus. She told me that after watching Passion of the Christ she said answered no because she didn't want to die like that. She was also asked if she loved God, if she believed that her teacher loved God, and one other question about Jesus. There were about 4 or 5 questions in all relating to God and Jesus.

She said it made her real uncomfortable and she wasn't sure how to answer it. No names were put on the questionnaires. I felt it went beyond inappropriate. I had already been uncomfortable with this teacher for connecting God and Bush to the class in the class before the election. I'm not sure how to procede with this. I'm in charge of the children since my son has custody and I take care of them. What would you do?

[DRoseDARs]

1. Highly inappropriate and probably illegal. Report it immediately. n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Follow these steps

first go talk to the teacher and ask why the questionnaire was given to the students. If you fear retaliation on the teacher's part, go to the principal (which would be your next step anyway). If you don't get a satisfactory answer, call up ALL the members of the school board.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Talk to the teacher first, then go to the principal or the school board.

In a non-confrontational way, you could suggest you think it's inappropriate for teachers to be asking questions about their personal religious beliefs, since this is a private matter for the family, and not the business of a public school teacher. For that matter, the teacher's personal religious beliefs should not be brought up to the students, either.

This is pretty weird.

[Maat]

6. I'm going to go with you guys and agree with your advice.

But I would be tempted to go to the principal right away. This seems unconstitutional and illegal to me. Talking to her first might give her time to come up with some stupid story. But, then, I'm so mad now just thinking about it. The nerve. In which state did this occur?

[zbdent]

11. and bring a tape recorder every time

better yet, get Michael Moore to set up a spycam so that you can go in and catch all the RW fury in its "glory" and expose it for what it is . . .

[DRoseDARs]

20. "and bring a tape recorder every time" if allowed by state law...

...otherwise any recording might not be admissable as evidence. I think here in Nevada all involved parties need to give consent.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

21. Other uses besides evidence

It may not be admissable, but I bet the local TV station would lurrrrve footage of a middle school principal going batshit about Jesus.

[LiberalFighter]

24. Nothing illegal about another person coming with you taking notes

[The empressof all]

4. I would be very upset about this too

However since you don't have legal custody you should probably discuss this with your son to elicit his opinion. He may not be willing to carry it forward although I sure as hell would try to encourage a child of mine to scream bloody murder about something like this to the school board and the media. Ultimately as the legal custodial parent it is up to him. If the mother is involved with the kids she should have input as well. He wouldn't want to make this an issue in any future custody concerns.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. Please call the ACLU.

This sort of thing is absolutely unacceptable. I have a feeling it's going to be getting more and more common, since the fundies now believe that they have a mandate to end the separation of church and state.

We have to do everything we can to nip this in the bud wherever it's happening. If we don't, we're going to find ourselves living under another Taliban.

I am outraged on you and your granddaughters behalf.

[Maat]

7. Go advice!

I'll tell you why. Your granddaughter's parents might not want to do the research. The ACLU will know the law and wise action hands down here, because they have dealt with this many time.

[llpoperations]

10. Call the ACLU

Let the ACLU carry the ball. They know how to structure the complaint, and what to do if immediate remedial actions are not undertaken.

And if it makes you feel uncomfortable, remember you're doing it to protect not only the rights of your grandaughter, but also her grandchildren and their grandchildren.

This is too big to ignore.

[SteveG]

19. Also contact Americans United for Separation of Church and State

http://www.au.org/

They take on cases like this all the time.

[yardwork]

8. I would approach the teacher and ask about it

The approach I use is to try to be friendly and objective with the teachers. Call and ask for an appointment, or talk directly with her on the phone. Ask about the questionnaire. Say that your granddaughter was confused and a little uncomfortable. Let the teacher explain.

It does sound inappropriate but maybe the teacher has an explanation.

[yardwork]

9. Follow up question

When did your granddaughter see "The Passion of the Christ?" Did you or one of the family take her to see it, or was it shown at school?

[sunnystarr]

13. We ordered the movie on Pay-Per-View on cable just after

Christmas so it was still fresh in her mind. I want to thank everyone for responding and for the great advise. I wasn't only concerned for Katie, I was also concerned because this is a very ethnically diverse school with children from many Christian denominations, Jewish, and Muslim faiths. We're not really practicing Catholics and while Katie has gone regularly to church with one of her friends last year, she's decided that for the time being she's agnostic.

I spoke to a friend of mine who's very Dem, married to an attorney, and more in the know about things than I am. She told me to ask for a copy of the questionnaire first before discussing it and to sign for it if need be. She said she's heard that many evangelical teachers are doing things like this deliberately and are looking for a challenge. If this is true then I guess I'll make her day!

Thanks again for your support and suggestions. I'm starting with the principal in the morning and I'll update you on my progress. I don't know what I did before finding all the wonderful people like you on DU!

[saltpoint]

12. On what you've given us --

-- I would say you would be highly justified in bringing a suit against the School and the Teacher, both named as defendants.

What possible function did this survey serve, anyway?

[Crunchy Frog]

14. I agree. Put them on notice

that there will be a genuine price to pay for engaging in that type of behavior.

[saltpoint]

17. Yes. Maybe raise it at the next PTA meeting as well?

[sunnystarr]

15. The questionnaire was basically to ask the students to rate the

teacher. Answers were filled in under the heading of Always, Mostly, Sometimes, Never. When I get the questionnaire tomorrow, I'll post some of the questions here. I thought some of the other questions were strange as well. My teacher smiles. My teacher laughs. The whole thing struck me as odd.

However on the last question students were asked to write their response. Because of the God/Jesus questions, Katie was afraid that the teacher would know her writing which is printing and that then her answers wouldn't be anonymous. So she answered in cursive since the teacher wasn't familiar with that form of her writing. That sure told me a lot.

[saltpoint]

16. Well, your daughter has her wits about her.

I would let your daughter see that you wiill demonstrably oppose any effort by anyone to control her thinking or pressure her into this or that thought system.

It's a nice present adults can give to kids.

[Crunchy Frog]

18. That whole questionnaire thing

sounds really suspicious. I thought those sorts of things came from administration and were to help them evaluate the teacher. I thought the teacher wasn't even supposed to see the answers, since that could really put the student in a spot. At least that's the way it's done at the college level, and I would expect elementary school students to be considered more vulnerable than college students.

Was this something the school was doing, or was it just something the teacher came up with.

At any rate, it's an outrage that kids should be put on the spot like that and made to feel afraid in the classroom.

I'm looking foreward to seeing what you find out after talking to the principal.

[sunnystarr]

22. I finally received a copy of the questionnaire...

After requesting it from the office, the teacher phoned me. Amazingly she knew exactly what why I wanted a copy. She said there were two questions on the survey that should have been removed. That she taught in a private Christian school last year and forgot those questions were on there. That some students asked her about the questions and she told the class to ignore them. I told her that before I would discuss the survey I wanted to read it. She faxed it over (the first grader was home today with stomach flu so I couldn't go in to the middle school).

It took her two tries to fax over the 4 pages with the 60 questions and the 2nd page was incomplete. I called back to the school to let them know I still needed page 2. They quickly said they were transferring my call to the principal. I had not requested to speak with him.

He had the survey and faxed me 2nd page. Then he phoned me back and we discussed it. He said the classes were instructed to cross out the questions. I said not true in Katie's class. There was some bantering around on that issue.

As with all children who are impacted by something Katie had expanded on the actual number of questions. There were two: 19. My teacher believes in God. and 57. My teacher really wants me to grow like Jesus did. The teacher had crossed out #57. in her fax but it was still readable. I know it was not crossed out on Katie's survey and that she answered it.

Aside from the inappropriateness of those two questions, the survey was totally flawed as a survey. I know a bit on this subject since I was a Psych major and this was an important part of the curriculum.

I addressed this as well with the principal stating that it's one thing to ask what a child thinks but another to ask what a child thinks his teacher thinks.

Also there were two questions requiring a write in response and it ended with a request to write additional comments (the teacher directed students to complete that section.) This destroyed the anonyminity of the survey since the students were well aware that the teacher knew their handwriting.

The principal was on the defensive, especially when I said that I was concerned about possible retaliation from the teacher since I've seen that happen before. He said that didn't happen at West End Middle School. I responded that I'm sure he doesn't think it would happen but that just as he was unaware of this survey, he was probably unaware when it did happen. He didn't respond to that. But since he and the teacher know I have a copy of this survey I'm sure that she'll think twice before she tries it.

I did tell the principal that if the school thought surveys were beneficial then he should construct an appropriate, viable survey for all teachers to use. I should have asked him if he approved the use of this survey but I was too put off with his defensive response and non-responses to my statements, suggestions, and questions.

As a sample question, question #1 My teacher enjoys teaching. gives you an idea. Katie said, How would I know if she does? Or question #15. My teacher is professional. 6th graders wouldn't have a clue what was being asked.

Oh and she gave this survey to 4th graders last year!

[Maat]

23. Good work!

It sounds to me like you put an end to it. I cannot shake the same feeling as one of the posters above who suggested that Religious Righters were getting more bold each day about challenging church-state separation, or something like that (I'm paraphrasing). I read the RR websites, and from all appearances, they are setting incidents up as legal challenges. What shows up on the site is that a Christian was harassed at their job - usually a teacher - and then, suddenly, either Jay Sekulow, of the Alliance Defense Fund, or Matt Staver, of Liberty Counsel, speaks out in defense of the 'Christian's' actions. And, (Surprise! Surprise!) the lawyer commenting represents the so-called victim of anti-'Christian' bigotry. It just seems to me that they are acting in an absolutely relentless manner. I became interested when some of my relatives moved back to the MidWest and became Southern Baptists, and began sending me some very interesting e-mails.

[LiberalFighter]

25. Seems like a lot of questions for a 6th grade class to answer