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Teachers Removed From School After Holy Water Incident

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Teachers Removed From School After Holy Water Incident

POMPANO BEACH, Fla — Two Broward teachers have been removed from their classrooms for allegedly pouring holy water on another teacher because she is an atheist.

Leslie Rainer and Djuna Robinson are veteran and self-proclaimed Christian teachers at Blanche Ely High School.

In April, they were re-assigned after another teacher, Schandra Rodriguez, who is an atheist, said they poured holy water on her during an incident at the school on March 11.

“Miss Robinson obtained a little bottle with some perfume in it in jest and the students will all confirm she never went close to Miss Rodriguez. Miss Rodriguez was on the other side of the classroom and that was basically it,” said Johnny L. McCray Jr., Rainer and Robinson’s attorney.

The accused teachers said it was a joke. Rodriguez, however, said they did it because she is an atheist.

Rodriguez is still teaching at the school and some said it’s not fair.

“If we are going to ban talking to students about God, then the atheists should also be banned from telling kids there is no God,” said Rev. Kirby Thurston.

The Broward School Board is investigating the allegations. According to McCray, students are also being questioned about what happened.

16% of US science teachers are creationists

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16% of US science teachers are creationists

Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in US schools, about one in eight high-school biology teachers still teach it as valid science, a survey reveals. And, although almost all teachers also taught evolution, those with less training in science – and especially evolutionary biology – tend to devote less class time to Darwinian principles.

US courts have repeatedly decreed that creationism and intelligent design are religion, not science, and have no place in school science classrooms. But no matter what courts and school boards decree, it is up to teachers to put the curriculum into practice.

“Ultimately, they are the ones who carry it out,” says Michael Berkman, a political scientist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

But what teachers actually teach about evolution and creationism in their classrooms is a bit of a grey area, so Berkman and his colleagues decided to conduct the first-ever national survey on the subject.

‘Not shocking’

The researchers polled a random sample of nearly 2000 high-school science teachers across the US in 2007. Of the 939 who responded, 2% said they did not cover evolution at all, with the majority spending between 3 and 10 classroom hours on the subject.

However, a quarter of the teachers also reported spending at least some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. Of these, 48% – about 12.5% of the total survey – said they taught it as a “valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species”.

Science teaching experts say they are not surprised to find such a large number of science teachers advocating creationism.

“It seems a bit high, but I am not shocked by it,” says Linda Froschauer, past president of the National Science Teachers Association based in Arlington, Virginia. “We do know there’s a problem out there, and this gives more credibility to the issue.”