Compensation payout for atheist parent who objected to religious content in school
David Michael, from Great Bernera off the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, has accepted a £1,000 compensation payment and more than £1400 in costs from Western Isles Council following a legal battle over the religious content in his son’s education and the manner in which they treated his complaint.
Overly religious elements in lessons about Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, and a planned trip to a Bible exhibition, had prompted the initial enquiries. The state-funded school is not even a ‘faith’ school, having “integrated community” status. But the school appeared, according to Mr Michael, inflexible in how it would handle his objections, unnecessarily extending his request to be removed from RE to other areas of school activities at a detriment to his son.
In a subsequent letter from Kirsteen Maclean, the school’s headteacher, he was told that removing his son, Anton, from religious education would have wider implications.
“Withdrawal from RE would also include him being withdrawn from all school assembly occasions and Christmas activities,” she said.
Link: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/council-pays-out-in-school-religion-row-1.1096037
The out-of-court settlement means that no liability has been accepted by the local authority and no legal precedent has been set.
Mr Michael has said he will donate the compensation money back to the school.
As much as I feel for schools in general and know perfectly well that they have more than enough hassle on their plates on a daily basis- it would have been so much more worthwhile for these parents to make a real stand here and take this issue to court. There is so much passive acceptance of religious bias in the education system, and so little time or opportunity for those ‘at the chalkface’ to voice any opposition. The practical implications for removing one child out of a couple hundred from assemblies/christmas services etc are real for the school. The child needs to be supervised, and that means an adult needs to be devoted to that task. That might not seem like a big deal, but to put it bluntly, when you have a million other things to think about (like 30 other children with individual education plans etc etc) it is a pain in the ass*. I want to make it very clear that I fully support a completely secular education system and would absolutely not want my child to take part in daily acts of worship. However as a teacher I know that it is a genuine practical issue that needs tackling at a much higher level. We need to see some of these cases taken to court and we need to see some precedent set.
*E.g. I am meant to take the 32 children in my class to an act of worship. There are 6 children with IEPs needing extra small group support with things like counting, motor control, sentence composition etc. Normally during this AOW I would choose one or two to stay behind with a teaching assistant for intensive booster sessions. If I have a child who has been withdrawn from the AOW, the TA would likely be left in charge of that child in addition to the booster group. That’s fine, assuming the child is well behaved and can occupy him or herself for that time. If not, the children who desperately need extra support will be losing out as the TA will be on behaviour duty instead of giving the booster group the attention they require.