God in School

How does one define ‘public’? When we interact in our community through the ‘public’ institutions what guidelines should there be and which ones are appropriate? These are just a couple of the questions that have been troubling me today, and they both originate from a news article that I read this morning.

A local high school has recently come under attack because they give recognition to God in their mission statement and even go as far as saying they value this sentiment in their students. I, personally, support this recognition that is held by the school district. However, a group out of Madison, WI known as Freedom from Religion Foundation has taken issue with it and has collected three complaints to give to the school board in order to strong arm the district into rewording their mission statement.

Now here comes my issue. As a ‘public’ school their actions and values should be dictated to them by two groups: the local community and the government bodies that preside over them.

1. Local Community: this group of people can easily be defined as the tax base, those who pay into the school district. Of this group of people it appears that most are in favor of leaving the mission statement alone, after all only three complaints have been lodged. One would think that when it comes to the local community’s belief there would need to be a much larger group of people involved in the complaint.

2. Government Bodies: a school district is directly controlled by the bodies of government over them (specifically the state) and therefore should reflect the values held by that government. With that said I wish to point out that in Ohio, where all of this is happening, the state motto is “With God, all things are possible.” It is obvious to me that Ohio has established a precedent that the belief in God is acceptable. Not only does this apply to Ohio, but the motto of the United States of America is “In God We Trust.” This leads me to believe that this school district has only extended the belief system, and model of standards, that has been established by their governing bodies.

In conclusion, I again have to ask, what is ‘public’? According to the actions of these protestors who lay in the minority it would seem that ‘public’ means to serve the interests of small groups. On that matter I disagree. Any institution that is in the public sector must follow two basic rules. First they must listen to their constituents and second they must follow the standards that have been put in place by their government. To both of these points the above mentioned school district has followed and therefore should be allowed to continue on with their currently stated mission until conditions change.