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Just to murky up the water a bit, at most public schools "fine arts" are entirely elective which is why there's usually fundraisers and such to "save" them as the state curricula rarely, if ever, requires such a thing and funds them accordingly. While you may have to perform this play to pass the class, I can see where an unsympathetic judge would rule you need not take that class to graduate according to the state and thus participation is voluntary.

As said earlier, elected judges play into that if the community is largely religious. Would that stand up on appeal? Who knows, but that would add tremendously to time you're wrapped up in this hypothetical suit. Court cases are often measured in years for these sorts of issues with schools so at some level you need to ask if its worth it and be ready for that long, grueling march if needs be. Over a terrible play written by someone amply demonstrating why they're not working in the theatrical business, I'm not sure it's worth it.

However, it is worth bringing up to higher school officials if it bothers you. Nothing may come of it owing to other laws and norms of where you are, but at least you'll have said something. Again, depending on what they're able to do (teacher's unions, tenure, etc.), they may resolve the situation with less fuss, but as others pointed out, you will be the focus of a lot of blame regardless if the play is stopped. I'm not saying you should suffer in silence, but being the focus of a lot of ire is an inevitability you need to be ready for if you pursue it.

While most of your post is valid, a fine arts credit is required to graduate. I told a certain official at the school- her two reasons for not canceling it were- in this order- it would make her extremely unpopular and I should have come to her immediately. Which in all fairness I shouldn't have wasted my time trying to prevent it without going to someone higher up first.

While a fine arts credit may be required, there's many other ones that would also satisfy that requirement versus the Math curriculum which specifies you must have Algebra I and higher or Language Arts or the other "core" subjects. Hence why its your Fine Arts "elective" credit. Again, I'm not saying the rationale is legally valid, just that a judge, especially an elected one in a religious community, might take the easy out at that point and rule your participation in this particular class is voluntary. There's what the law says, and how things actually work. Unfortunately those two things are usually not in perfect alignment. You can push to get more visibility onto the topic which will nudge them closer together, but again, that's where you end up spending years of your life on this particular cause, in addition to the general hassle of life at that stage.

Hypothetical cases aside, assuming you're in a public school system of many schools (versus a division of one), chances are that official has a boss and you can go to them. You can realistically continue to escalate all the way to the School Board though again, depending on your locality you will run into the "elected official" problem. However, while the local official may not wish to be "the bad guy" in shutting things down, the division officials typically have less concern over such things (dramatically less so in larger systems); they're far away from the daily backlash and the local people can go "Hey, I didn't want to, the big-wigs made me." Bears repeating that if you're in an overly religious area where the higher people are similarly inclined even that is unlikely to bring relief.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
While most of your post is valid, a fine arts credit is required to graduate. I told a certain official at the school- her two reasons for not canceling it were- in this order- it would make her extremely unpopular and I should have come to her immediately. Which in all fairness I shouldn't have wasted my time trying to prevent it without going to someone higher up first.

The play sounds ham fisted, but it is an elective. You should save your energy for real fights.

Got a group of attorneys to write a letter to the school explaining the law to them. Hopefully this will yield results.

The path of least resistanc eis to leave Choir and go to a different elective.

However, the path of least resistance is not always the path you should take.

They have "postponed" the opera. Everyone is shocked, despite knowing for 5 months what they were doing was wrong. The principal is "shocked" despite him knowing how illegal it was, and saying he wasn't going to touch it only because it would make him "unpopular".

It's not like religion was ever the only way teachers could make things bad for students.

My music teacher in 13-15 was a baptist pastor, but he was a real professional. Even if he asked us boys with a deeper voice to help with the bass for the school christmas play it never came across as forcing or coercing. As said, a true professional.

But the music teacher in our Gymnasium (High School equivalent) wasa different matter. He didn't care about religion, but he always favored students that took part in his yearly music show in an earlier school. It could ofc be that I'm mistaken, but I would be surprised if it was showed that people not from his elementary school, or who didn't play an instrument, or who didn't support his show in that elementary school actually got the same or better grades as students who did.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
Got a group of attorneys to write a letter to the school explaining the law to them. Hopefully this will yield results.

Well done.




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FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
They have "postponed" the opera. Everyone is shocked, despite knowing for 5 months what they were doing was wrong. The principal is "shocked" despite him knowing how illegal it was, and saying he wasn't going to touch it only because it would make him "unpopular".

Sounds like you got the result you were looking for. Congrats. For what it's worth, I shared your distaste for what was occurring, and I applaud you for having the guts and maturity to act on that. A lot of times its easier to just turn a blind eye, but that breeds apathy.

Yep, now on to a school production and the first amendment part 2- Death Threat addition. Also if you are interested in searching it it is Willoughby South Opera. I changed some people to female from male in my original post, but you can understand why I tried to prevent an exact match if someone from my school came across this thread. But that is all under the bridge now. If you would like to help, feel free to comment on Facebook or twitter, the students are using #WeAreMartol on twitter.

Good for you. This lady will probably never try to create something again, as you've worked so hard to crush her dream. I'm sure the kids who helped with it were entirely forced and had no choice or say. Live inside the box, people! Don't venture out of it, somebody will take offense!

I don't support anyone who is issuing you death threats: those are not appropriate. But your actions are disgusting to me. You get a huge thumbs down from me, and you are clearly somebody I'd never like to meet.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Good for you. This lady will probably never try to create something again, as you've worked so hard to crush her dream. I'm sure the kids who helped with it were entirely forced and had no choice or say. Live inside the box, people! Don't venture out of it, somebody will take offense!

If she's so fragile an artist that saying "you can't break the law to create your art" is enough to permanently destroy her creative efforts then she wasn't much of an artist in the first place. If this is such an important dream to her then she's perfectly capable of doing it outside of public schools where it would be perfectly legal.

But your actions are disgusting to me. You get a huge thumbs down from me, and you are clearly somebody I'd never like to meet.

Yeah, it's so disgusting to expect people to follow the law instead of deciding that their religion puts them above it. How dare anyone try to enforce the law instead of saying "it's ok, you really want to break the law so I shouldn't crush your dreams".

Go read the messages on Facebook. Timetowaste85, see the glorious soldiers of your side, clad in all there grammarless glory. Don't be one of them. Also, I told you that the choir director is male indirectly in my last post. Please bother to read fully before you disapprove of me as a human being.

Oh, and half the kids bullied me after I had the NERVE to say one bad thing about papa choir director's actions. I lost about 75
Percent of my secondary friends to them spreading lies about me. So forgive me for not being sympathetic.

You were told at the beginning of the thread, when you asked for thoughts, to pick your battles. If you wanted this fight, you should have been prepared for the outcome that you'd lose a lot of friends.

My only sympathy towards you are the threats against you. You don't deserve that. Nobody does. But that doesn't mean you don't deserve the other consequences. You wanna start a crusade against something that has a lot of support? Prepare to lose a lot for everything you gain. You picked the battle, enjoy everything that goes with it.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Good for you. This lady will probably never try to create something again, as you've worked so hard to crush her dream. I'm sure the kids who helped with it were entirely forced and had no choice or say. Live inside the box, people! Don't venture out of it, somebody will take offense!

Do you have any idea what it is like to be part of an excluded minority? If her dreams were to use her government position to portray one religion favorably to all her students, then her dreams deserved to get crushed. It was a blatant misuse of her power, and it is very painful to experience such a thing from the student's perspective.


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 timetowaste85 wrote:
You were told at the beginning of the thread, when you asked for thoughts, to pick your battles. If you wanted this fight, you should have been prepared for the outcome that you'd lose a lot of friends.

My only sympathy towards you are the threats against you. You don't deserve that. Nobody does. But that doesn't mean you don't deserve the other consequences. You wanna start a crusade against something that has a lot of support? Prepare to lose a lot for everything you gain. You picked the battle, enjoy everything that goes with it.

Seriously? You are mad at him for not taking it like a bitch/chump/victim? Are the only options suffer injustice or suffer bullying? That outlook is why the world is such a miserable place.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
You were told at the beginning of the thread, when you asked for thoughts, to pick your battles. If you wanted this fight, you should have been prepared for the outcome that you'd lose a lot of friends.

The fact that people predicted that he might lose friends over this or have to deal with s doesn't mean that it's right for people to act that way.

But that doesn't mean you don't deserve the other consequences.

Yeah, how dare he expect people to follow the law. He absolutely deserves to be abused for not just letting them get away with it. /sarcasm

I have two questions for the OP before remarking:

1. Was anyone forced to participate in the performance?

2. Was anyone forced to attend the performance?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I have two questions for the OP before remarking:

1. Was anyone forced to participate in the performance?

2. Was anyone forced to attend the performance?

I have a question to you: Does any of that matter when the law explicitly states you can't, as a member of staff, promote your religion in schools?

How valid are such questions in the context of a typical school activity?

Well, if they where using school funds, it's a different thing.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I have two questions for the OP before remarking:

1. Was anyone forced to participate in the performance?

2. Was anyone forced to attend the performance?

1. It was a class. He never said, " if you don't feel like participating, you can just ask me for something else to do." And the way everyone in the class operates is like "one big family" so lots of peer pressure and fear of becoming an outcast. We started to learn the songs in September, by the time he introduced he dialog everyone had already invested in it for several months.

2. No.

Neither of these matter though, it is still illegal.
Also, 4000 dollars were given in grants or fundraised by the students.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It was a class. He never said, " if you don't feel like participating, you can just ask me for something else to do." And the way everyone in the class operates is like "one big family" so lots of peer pressure and fear of becoming an outcast. We started to learn the songs in September, by the time he introduced he dialog everyone had already invested in it for several months.

Did anybody ask her to change the dialog?

One of my friends was able to get the gospel choir group at our high school removed because we were forced to hear them perform at a pep rally. We fought it by hiring a lawyer - they won some big competition and assumed the everyone in the school supports the message of the songs they sing. It's sickening. Keep fighting! Also, we were able to have our graduation ceremony moved from the baptist church to the football/track field because forcing other people into a church is offensive to many.

Yeesh. It's actually against some people's religions to set foot in other religion's houses of worship. That's even worse than the singing or the play.


It's amazing how many schools don't know what's in the constitution, despite teaching it.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yeesh. It's actually against some people's religions to set foot in other religion's houses of worship. That's even worse than the singing or the play.
.

I Wasnt Aware the football field was a place of worhship huh.
And, I honestly think they think they are too big to fail kinda thing.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yeesh. It's actually against some people's religions to set foot in other religion's houses of worship. That's even worse than the singing or the play.
.

I Wasnt Aware the football field was a place of worhship huh.
And, I honestly think they think they are too big to fail kinda thing.

No, about the church thing.

I was making a joke.

Ah, it's hard to tell without a .

Anyone look at the Californium on social media yet? Kind of funny in a depressing sort of way.

Luchenister said the opera is about a sinner who is contacted by a messenger from God, then is tempted deeper into sin. He called it a religious opera and said public school teachers have no business promoting religion. He acknowledged he had not read the opera and relied on the complainant's description.

Emphasis mine.

So basically they were willing to send a letter and threaten litigation based on an opera they hadn't actually read. Sounds legit.


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
If I was a student who had invested a significant amount of time and energy working on a production and someone got it shut down because they were bothered by it featuring some generic religious imagery in Latin, I would be furious.

It's not just the contents, it's the fact that it's a teacher blatantly endorsing a particular religion and getting students to participate in it.

What particular religion is the teacher endorsing?


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 SilverMK2 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I have two questions for the OP before remarking:

1. Was anyone forced to participate in the performance?

2. Was anyone forced to attend the performance?

I have a question to you: Does any of that matter when the law explicitly states you can't, as a member of staff, promote your religion in schools?

What religion was a member of the staff promoting again?