[...] The
biblical story of Noah’s Ark will be taught, without mention of who
told Noah to build it. Challah, the Jewish bread eaten on the Sabbath,
will be baked, but no blessings said over it. Some crucifixes will be
removed, but others left hanging.
These are the kinds of church-state gymnastics that New York City and
some religious schools are performing as Mayor Bill de Blasio
expands
government-funded prekindergarten.
Because of inadequate public school capacity, the de Blasio
administration has been urging religious schools and community
organizations to consider hosting the added programs.
But the push is raising fresh questions for civil libertarians
concerned about church-state issues, and for the schools themselves,
which want to help the city and qualify for its roughly
$10,000-per-student
tuition payments while preserving some of the
faith-based elements that attract their main clientele.
The
city is now asking those schools to consider converting their
government-subsidized programs to a full day, or six hours 20 minutes,
of secular instruction. Richard R. Buery Jr., the deputy mayor in
charge of the prekindergarten expansion, said the shift was part of the
mayor’s push “to create a single,
unified, high-quality system.”
The concerns crystallized in a one-page document the city issued in May
to religious schools weighing whether to host full-day prekindergarten
classes. Rather than state simply, as other municipalities have, that
all religious instruction is prohibited, the city’s guidelines say that
religious texts may be taught if they are “presented objectively as
part of a secular program of instruction.” Learning about one’s culture
is permitted, city officials say, but religious instruction is not.
[....]
Religious symbols are not permitted in areas used by city-funded
prekindergarten students. A mezuza on a doorway would generally be
allowed, but if it had a Jewish star on the outside, it would have to
be evaluated in context: If it was small, it would probably be fine,
said Maya Wiley, the counsel to the mayor who helped develop the
guidelines.
City officials point out that there is nothing new about religious
organizations’ housing publicly funded prekindergarten programs;
Catholic schools and other faith-based organizations already host
half-day versions. But those programs present fewer potential legal
problems, because the schools can deliver secular education during one
half of the day and religious instruction during the other, when
parents, not the city, are paying.
The city is now asking those schools to consider converting their
government-subsidized programs to a full day, or six hours 20 minutes,
of secular instruction. Richard R. Buery Jr., the deputy mayor in
charge of the prekindergarten expansion, said the shift was part of the
mayor’s push “to create a single, unified, high-quality system.”
[Full]
