You think he may have been humming hymns too!! 
That would be really bad. (EDIT: That was a joke… Thanks for “liking” it and understanding, John. 
)
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It is far more likely he was asked to resign.
Okay, but I only know what I’m reading. The point stands that it is a shame that kids don’t have a coach.
So is it illegal for teachers to have bible studies attended by students in America?
Or for students to express religious beliefs through clothes?
What exactly is the constitutional issue here?
A teacher leading these things is coercive.
A student could have led a voluntary prayer meeting or worn a shirt, and there would have been no problem. A teacher, however, has power over the students, so any of his involvement is too easily coercive, especially when it is meant to involve all the students in the team.
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There is definitely a risk of coercion…
But then the same logic should apply to religious parents, family elders, pastors of the church the family attends etc.
Is the issue that the teacher is a government employee (are they?)and hence represents the Government to students in some manner?
Yes, that is the difference.
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Hmm. To me, it seems more likely he was given the options of ether a) continuing to coach without violating students’ human rights, or b) resigning. And he chose option b.
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That’s possible. We do not know.
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Alerted to this thread by an e-mail from a US reader with experience of teaching, and detailed knowledge of the social situation in the area. Perhaps he’ll post at some stage, or perhaps it might put him at professional risk.
But it’s not hard to interpret the significant, familiar, points in this story. When a report talks about “a community member” making a complaint, it means someone with no direct involvement making trouble for his own reasons. Our church planning application was blocked because of the behind-the-scenes influence on the local council of an anonymous person, much to the surprise of most of those “in the community.” That’s how misuse of influence works the world over.
“Resigned”, in the case of a volunteer coach (which is certainly the case in such a poor community, my e-mailer says) means “pressured to resign.”
The result is that a team of friends, quite probably, it appears, from the same local church) is left without a coach, having made no complaints about him themselves and, from all appearances, there being no complaints from the parents who buy and wash the offending gear. If they’d objected they would have withdrawn their children rather than complaining to some distant secularist pressure group up north to fight their battles for them.
So congrats, Patrick - your social warriors have buggered up possibly the only social outlet that exists for a bunch of poor kids, for whose welfare they’ve never contibuted a dime. I see no cause for self-congratulation there.
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Really, who are these trouble-makers reporting violations of the law. The nerve!
Who knows. It could be all kinds of things. If the school district pressured him to resign for potentially exposing them to legal costs for no good reason, I wouldn’t be surprised though.
I don’t know, schools in even the poorest neighborhoods in the US don’t seem to have a problem working out the logistics of their basketball team. I’m sure they’ll be okay. If he even really was pressured–it’s hard to say. Maybe he felt it went against his religious convictions or something. I agree though that if it wasn’t reported to the school, and straight to the FFRF, that’s not the way I would do it–in a perfect world. In reality, it’s not hard for me to imagine situations where there would be a backlash against me or my children if I reported it to the school in the US. I suppose one could skulk around and try to do it anonymously, but, knowing that the FFRF wouldn’t proceed with legal action as long as the problem was corrected, I might go that way as well.
Maybe following the law would be a good way not to bugger things up.
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Have you any information that indicates this actually happened? e.g. Has the basketball program been suspended because they could not find anyone willing and able to coach the team without committing human rights offenses?
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Sorry but you don’t have your facts straight. Animas Public School district is publicly funded school district with a budget of 10’s of million of dollars per year. It has an elected Board of Education and operates according to the State of New Mexico educational requirements. Teachers and Administrators are paid by the Board of Education and belong to the teachers’ union. Being the High School basketball coach is usually a tenured teacher who is paid additional to be the Head Coach of the basketball team. As such all school employees must obey the law and the regulations or be subject to disciplinary action by the Board of Education. The disciplinary process has a due diligence process and the teacher has union attorney’s to defend them.
So in this case, the Board of Education was notified that unconstitutional activities were going on. The Board was in the process of investigating. FFRF is not party to these investigation or what transpired regarding the teacher’s resignation. Perhaps the teacher was one year from retirement and the Board gave him an incentive payment to retire early. We don’t know what went on.
But don’t give my that poor Christian persecution nonsense. This wasn’t a guy volunteering to help poor kids play basketball. The coach was paid, the boys basketball program was well staffed, equipped and included a gymnasium to play in. All tax payer funded.
https://www.animask12.net/Home
Here is the letter FFRF received from the Superintend about this matter:
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As public schools in the US are almost always funded by property taxes, being a taxpayer should be direct enough for anyone.
Such coaches are rarely volunteers and the letter from the superintendent provides no such indications, so your e-mailer’s understanding is suspect at best.
If the coach was a volunteer, it would certainly have been featured in a letter written by anyone with any political acumen.
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Taxpayers have a stake in this, too. They may not want their tax dollars going to a public school program that unconstitutionally advances religious belief.
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Welcome to my first and last post at Peaceful Science. I care a great deal more about teachers and kids than GA, so I trust you understand. (Joshua, I would appreciate not being labeled, but it’s your playground.)
For a scientist, you play pretty fast and loose with facts that aren’t too difficult to find. Do you not understand how the Google machine works?
Animas Public Schools FY2016 budget was $3 million. See Appendix G. https://www.nmlegis.gov/Entity/LFC/Documents/Program_Evaluation_Reports/Federal%20Funding%20in%20Public%20Schools.pdf
Union membership is optional in NM. I was a teacher in NM and could not afford to pay rent and union dues at the same time. A minority of teachers are members of the union in this state.
There is no such thing as a tenured public school teacher in this state, and “usually” means nothing at a school in the middle of nowhere. I easily found the ex-coach’s name and emailed him a few questions, but he hasn’t replied as of yet. In any case, there is no administrator, teacher, or staff by that name on the school district website. The man resigned a few days ago. I don’t think the school was quite that quick to update its website, so we know he was not a full-time teacher at the school. Additionally, I looked up his licensure on the NMPED website. He has held a coaching license since 2016, but he is not licensed to teach. The coaching license is required for legal and insurance purposes, but that is true for both paid and volunteer coaches.
Bottom line: I suspect the district paid the man a coaching stipend, but having received those myself, it was somewhere in the ballpark of $1500, which doesn’t cover the coach’s time, let alone the gas in his truck. He did it for love of the game and the kids and, especially, for the opportunity to mentor them as a Christian man. Take the last bit away, and what’s left? He’s certainly not coaching out of boredom or for the money, and if he resigns, at least he can still participate in the youth group at church without being hassled or possibly sued. Not worth the trouble.
The man was not a teacher, a full-time employee of the school, or a member of the union.
So, the FFRF jumped into a situation that already had been addressed and made things worse. Congratulations. There’s no reason to consider the context. Just blindly apply the rules, consequences be damned.
Nobody was being persecuted in either direction. The coach wasn’t paid enough to cover his time. Animas, New Mexico, is a remote, unincorporated area just north of the Mexican border. Less than 1000 people live in the school district, and the median household income is $33,000 (compared to U.S. median $56,000). Students are bused to the school from as far as 60 miles away, which is why it only operates four days a week. The upper school is a combined middle/high school (six grades) with 76 students and eight teachers. The superintendent of the district is the high school principal. The graduating class has seven kids. The basketball team only had 12 boys, including one 8th grader.
Obviously, you don’t know squat about these remote rural schools. They operate like extended families. We’re talking about a handful of boys who have known each other and the coach their whole lives, and most of them go to the same church. I found a picture of the First Baptist Church of Animas. Looks like they’re rolling in dough:
Yes, the coach committed a technical violation, but no one’s rights were violated, and no one was discriminated against. It was a huge pile of nothing until the FFRF got involved. Rural school districts like Animas can barely afford supplies, let alone defend a pointless lawsuit. So, the kids lost their coach.
Way to go, Patrick! You just gave 1,000 folks in rural New Mexico a reason to dislike atheists. Glad you find that meaningful work, and that Peaceful Science gives you a nice forum to publicize it. I would say you can reach me at BL if you’d like to discuss this further, but I just remembered that you’re banned for life over there. Dang! Oh, well. Enjoy the few sandboxes where you’re still allowed to play!
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Why couldn’t the coach have stayed on and refrained from having them wear religiously based T-shirts and refrained from having Bible studies at the school?
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I hope this gives you greater insight into the political nature of the question: shall public schools be allowed to discuss the religious concept of Creation?.. or Intelligent Design? … and the like.
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Yes, the first thing Patrick said was “We didn’t want him to resign, we wanted him to stop proselytizing in a public school.” I guess that’s too complicated.
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This is just the Federal Funding. They get State, County and local funding as well.
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