Odessa Bible Course Attracts -- Who Else? -- the ACLU

Odessa Bible Course Attracts -- Who Else? -- the ACLU
District School Board Confident Elective Course Will Go Forward

By Jim Brown
August 2, 2006

(AgapePress) - A school board trustee in Odessa, Texas, says any protest by the ACLU will not derail implementation of a high school Bible elective course being offered this fall in the district. He says he doesn't fear possible litigation from the liberal group.

According to an Associated Press report in April 2005, more than 6,000 people signed a petition supporting a Bible class among the high school electives in Odessa. Now an open records request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union seeks all records relating to the class and its curriculum. The ACLU also wants minutes and tape recordings from Ector County School Board meetings.

The course being offered is developed by the North Carolina-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), which claims its curriculum has been voted into 353 school districts in 37 states, Texas among them -- and that 180,000 students have taken the course. Doyle Woodall, a trustee on the school board, says he and his fellow trustees have no plans to reverse their decision to adopt the class.

"They have a lot of money," says Woodall, referring to the ACLU. "If they want to come after us, they just need to get after it, because we're not going to blink on this. This is what the community wants. This is what the school board has voted to put in as an elective, and we're not going to let the ACLU tell us how to run our school district here in Odessa, Texas."

Woodall says if the ACLU chooses to pursue its intentions, it will be wasting its money. "They've got a lot of money to waste, so they just need to spend their money in whatever fashion they see fit," he says. "This is going to be an elective class; we had a petition with 6,000 signatures on it from the community. They [the ACLU] really don't have a leg to stand on. No one's trying to pull something. This is a legitimate course that's accepted nationwide."

The Odessa school board member says every time the NCBCPS Bible curriculum has been challenged in the past, opponents have either withdrawn their complaint or lost in court.

Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.