Court Ruling Prompts Ban on Groups Sending Fliers Home With Students

[GernBlansten 10]

No, Ed, its not OK to send NAMBLA flyers home. Its also not OK to send Jesus for Kids flyers home or BSA recruitment materials or the Saturday Evening Post. They are not related to the school program and should not be included in the packet. If you allow one, you must allow all. That's the price of freedom.

[evmori 11]

Ah but if the BSA unit is chartered by the PTA, then there is a school tie! And if the Bible Thumpers Club that the school runs wants to send fliers home they should be able to because they have ties with the school!

 

So under this new policy, are teachers and administrators sending fliers home? They shouldn't be!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[DanKroh 11]

Beavah: "Yah, sorry, that's not legal there, DanKroh. PTA's are separately incorporated and not under da direction of the elected school board, eh?

 

If your district allows the PTA fliers, but doesn't allow Scoutin' flyers, they're acting illegally. Anybody who wants to can bring a complaint and win. And an honorable school system would act in accord with the law, eh?"

 

Huh, I didn't know that about PTAs. I wonder if it makes any difference that our "PTA" is not actually called that (can't remember what they are called right now, since it's been almost three months since I've even looked at a backpack). I know the SPEDPAC (Special Education Parent Advisory Council) sends stuff home in the backpacks. Wonder if they fall under the same category. Eh?

 

 

[GernBlansten 10]

ED: "Ah but if the BSA unit is chartered by the PTA, then there is a school tie! And if the Bible Thumpers Club that the school runs wants to send fliers home they should be able to because they have ties with the school!"

 

Two problems with that argument. First off, If the PTA was a direct extention to the school (IE, owned by the school district) they cannot charter a BSA unit. Second problem, the Bible Thumpers club better not be run by (owned) the school. The school can rent/donate them a space to meet and a school employee donate his/her time to the club, but the school cannot own that club nor can an employee operate it on government time. So in both cases, I don't think the clubs are tied to the schools.

 

[Hunt 11]

I live in the county where this is happening, so I can share some observations about this. The issue started solely because the County did want to discriminate based on viewpoint--they wanted to exclude the Christian evangelical Group. They are now stating that they don't want to overwhelm the staff with flyers but, in my opinion, this is essentially a lie, because they never cared about it before the Christian group wanted in--and the number of flyers never was all that oppressive, anyway.

Their first effort to deal with this was a policy that allowed flyers from the PTA and from non-profit sports leagues, and nobody else. This had a real effect on scout recruiting (especially for Cubs), because the "backpack mail" was generally more effective than a table with handouts at a crowded back-to-school night.

The Christian group took the new policy back to the court, and won again. Currently, the county has initiated a policy in which there can be no backpack mail except from the school itself or other government groups. The principal can send a newsletter that mentions PTA events, but nothing from the PTA itself can be sent. In addition, the school websites must disable their links to PTA websites, and teachers can't collect materials related to PTA activities (like gift wrap orders, etc.) The School Board will be considering a new policy. Obviously, the PTAs will go bananas over the interim policy--perhaps it's just to soften them up to accept an open policy as the only other alternative. The Scouts are in the middle of this--nobody was really trying to keep us out, but we really are in the same position as the Christian group. I'll report on further developments if you are interested.

[fgoodwin 23]

Hunt, thanx for the report.

 

I used to live in Montgomery County, MD, which I understand instituted a "no backpack mail" policy a year or two after I left. So I can't speak from personal experience about how such a policy impacts Cub Packs, but I can't imagine it would be good.

 

In any event, I appreciate your offer to keep us updated on this.