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Evangelical group sues Haverford district over fliers

Haverford Township school officials are trying to extricate the district from a legal tussle with an evangelical Christian group that wants to send informational fliers home with grade-school students.

Haverford Township school officials are trying to extricate the district from a legal tussle with an evangelical Christian group that wants to send informational fliers home with grade-school students.

Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) filed suit against the Haverford Township School District in late October after the district refused to distribute fliers promoting the group's after-school Good News Club.

Two of the district's five elementary schools, Lynnewood and Coopertown, already have Good News Clubs, where children learn Bible verses and sing religious songs. The organization plans to hold similar six-week programs at the remaining three.

Child Evangelism Fellowship's stated goal is to convert children to Christianity. School officials worried that by sending home the fliers, parents or children might believe the school sponsors the club, according to motions filed in federal court.

After CEF sued, the district relented and sent out between 750 and 800 fliers in students' Friday take-home folders the week before Thanksgiving, said Mary Beth Lauer, the district's community-relations director. The fliers, which were sent home with students at Chatham Park and Chestnutwold Elementaries, contained a disclaimer declaring that the school did not sponsor or endorse the activity.

Laurer said she could not comment on whether parent-teacher organizations would no longer be permitted to send home fliers, as the case is in litigation.

In a statement, Superintendent William Keilbaugh said: "If, as alleged, our rule of distributing only school and township youth recreation program materials was not strictly complied with, and other groups' materials were sent home with students, that was an inadvertent error we will correct going forward."

The district is hoping to settle the matter out of court, although it might still be on the hook for legal and court fees. Meanwhile, school officials are trying to figure how to best enforce the district's flier policy - which allows only school- and township-sponsored groups to send home letters with the children - without hurting groups such as PTOs.

Cheryl Wert, a PTO member at Chestnutwold, said the district would not allow her to send a flier about this weekend's holiday gift and craft fair, an annual fund-raiser for the PTO.

"We're going to have to come up with other resources," she said.

Child Evangelism Fellowship is a nonprofit international organization that has established more than 3,400 Good News Clubs in the United States, including 400 in Pennsylvania. At least 35 of the clubs are operating in Delaware County schools, said Donna Weiss, CEF's Delaware County director.

At the after-school club meetings, volunteer teachers explain the concept of sin and urge the children to accept Jesus and a Christian way of life, according to Weiss and CEF's Web site.

"We tell them that, unfortunately, they have sinned, and Jesus died on the cross for them," Weiss said. "We're not hiding what we're teaching."

CEF targets children ages 5 to 12 because younger children are more open to new ideas, Weiss said.

And CEF's goal is to have Good News Clubs operating in every public school, according to the group's Web site.

"We could revolutionize our culture in one generation!" the site reads. "Many churches have caught this vision and have partnered with CEF to adopt a school as their mission field."

Some Haverford parents oppose CEF's holding meetings on school grounds, especially with younger children. They worry that children won't understand the difference between class lessons and Bible studies taught after school.

"Kids learn by rote, and accept as truth most of what is told to them," said Rebecca Abrahams, who has two children at Chatham Park Elementary. "They are highly impressionable and habit-forming at this age, a fact not lost on this aggressive CEF organization, which is seeking to convert everyone, one child at a time."

Parents must sign a permission slip to have their children attend a Good News Club. If parents do not want their children to attend, they don't have to send them, Weiss said.

Had the Haverford School District kept up the fight against CEF, it likely would have been unsuccessful.

"We have never lost a Child Evangelism Fellowship case," said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a law firm that represents CEF. He estimates that in the eight years Liberty Counsel has helped represent CEF, it has successfully sued about 35 districts.

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Milford School District in upstate New York was wrong to prevent CEF from holding Good News Club meetings at the school, dismissing the district's argument that holding the club on school property violated the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. The group should be given the same access to students as any secular group, the court ruled.

Schools that have been sued by CEF have two choices: include them equally or exclude all non-school groups, said Rebecca Kratz, a lawyer with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates a firm division of church and state.