“[The exam was] intended as an exercise to encourage critical thinking skills and dialogue by engaging students in an exercise wherein they identified statements as fact, opinion, or common assertion and was not intended to question or challenge any student’s religious beliefs as reported by some media outlets.”For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
-- School district statement
Texas Teacher Confiscates Bible from Second-grader
Florida Student Failed for Being Christian, Lawyer Says
Nevada Teacher Bans Student's Christianity, Lawyer Says
Wisconsin Prof. Threatens Student for her Christianity
Bible Harmful to Students, Must Ban, California Parents Say
California School Bans Books by Christian Authors
Also read Religion or Gay Agenda: California Students to Choose
And read 'God Bless America' Banned from Florida School
-- From "Student: Teacher taught 'God is not real'" by Josh Chapin, KHOU-TV (Houston, TX) USA Today Network 10/28/15
"I said it was fact or opinion," [Jordan Wooley] said, adding she answered that way because "based on my religion and based on what I think and believe, I do not think it was a common place assertion."
Jordan said her reading teacher said both her answers were wrong and that she had to admit God wasn't real.
"It was really confusing to me at first because I didn't really know what to do, so the first thing I did was tell my mom," Jordan said.
"That a kid was literally graded against her faith in God in a classroom," said [mother Chantel] Wooley who questioned who would want that to be known.
Jordan said the assignment was in fact graded, so she would have had to contradict her faith in order to pass.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Katy ISD teacher reportedly tells student God doesn't exist" by Jessica Willey, KTRK-TV13 (Houston, TX) 10/27/15
"She [the teacher] told us it was wrong and a myth of our imagination that is commonly believed to be true but completely wrong," [Jordan] Wooley said. "For her to tell me my religion was wrong shocked me. To me there is a God."
"I think that the teacher crossed a serious line when she led impressionable minds to write there was no God...that God wasn't real. I think that infringes on my child's rights," Jordan's mother, Chantel Wooley said.
She believes the teacher should be dismissed. Katy ISD says "appropriate personnel action" will be taken. The assignment has been scrapped.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Texas seventh grader says teacher told class: ‘God is a myth’" by Peter Holley, Washington Post 10/28/15
[Jordan Wooley said,] “When I tried to argue she [the teacher] told me to prove it and I tried to offer things such as the Bible and stories that I’ve read before from people who have died and went to Heaven, but have come back and told their stories.”
Wooley says the discussion became a heated classroom argument that prompted one child to slam her books on her desk and another student to go home crying. When students asked the teacher why they were led to believe that God “is true if he is untrue,” Wooley says, the teacher told students to ask their pastors.
A furious Chantel Wooley, whose family is Methodist, filed a complaint with her daughter’s principal Monday afternoon and then she allowed her daughter to report her complaint to the Katy school board hours later. She told ABC affiliate KTRK that the by writing that God is not real the teacher — who has not been identified — “infringed” on her child’s “rights.”
“In New York, California, Vermont, the liberal states, I could totally see this as happening,” Wooley told KRIV. “But in Houston, Texas, where it’s red, white, and blue, and stars all over, and God bless the USA, and ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’, you know, Texas is messing with my kid.”
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Also read Georgia School: Learn Islam or Take Lower Grade
