The following is an unedited, library/archive copy of a story that appeared in the February 18, 2005, edition of the Elgin Courier News:
WEST DUNDEE — Pastors, church members and an atheist advocate sat down at the same table Thursday with a common goal: Helping children in Community Unit School District 300.
Specifically, they came looking for how to do so without breaching the separation of church and state through a newly formed district ministerial council.
"There's nothing wrong with it, as long as they achieve an appropriate mission," said Rob Sherman, a well-known suburban atheist watchdog, about the council. "That is, without sneaking religion into (students') lives while they are a captive audience of the school district."
Sherman said he was asked to attend the meeting by a concerned Courier News reader, who had forwarded him an article about the formation of the council last week. The group was convened by Superintendent Ken Arndt this year to pool resources on behalf of schoolchildren and possibly assist in counseling during crises.
Sherman, who operates Buffalo Grove-based Rob Sherman Advocacy and is running for state representative in the 53rd District, has championed various atheist causes in the Chicago area. He was successful in changing symbols on the city seal of Zion, stopping Wauconda from placing a cross on a village water tower at Christmas and helping dissolve a Lake County-supported Boy Scout troop. In the mid-1990s, he objected to public funding of an Elgin anti-gang program called God's Gym.
But based on discussion Sherman heard by church congregation representatives from Algonquin to East Dundee, the District 300 council has his blessing.
"This is a good group that has made it clear that their intention is to help students enhance their education without crossing the line," Sherman said.
"It is a very frustrating area of the law," Kriha said. "Legally, it's very, very complex."
Kriha provided a list of guidelines for what boards of education can and can't allow on school grounds. Many court cases have had to do with students exercising religious beliefs in schools, Kriha said, and the issue frequently has been whether a child feels compelled or pressured to partake in religious activity.
For example, students can sing religious songs at a concert if there is a secular purpose for the music, but pupils need not be immunized if it conflicts with religious beliefs. There should be no prayers at graduation ceremonies, but Illinois' mandatory pledge of allegiance is acceptable since there is an opt-out provision.
"It seems that there's not a consistent goal," said the Rev. Bill Yonker of Immanuel Lutheran Church in East Dundee. "Is it to protect the minority? Is it to protect the majority? Which is it?"
Sherman piped in and said that government should be "scrupulously neutral" on matter of faith, referencing language from a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Lynch v. Donnelly.
"Something that would be helpful is to 'accommodate without advocacy,' " Sherman said.
Ministerial council members still are working on what exactly their mission statement will be and what types of projects they will work on together.
"Our schools are the only common denominator of all these communities," Arndt told the group. "So really, the thought was, 'What can we do collectively to bring our communities together — but more importantly, to help our youth?' "
The Rev. James Swarthout of St. James' Episcopal Church in West Dundee said after the meeting that he would like to see some after-school tutoring for District 300 students and more interchurch networking to help needy families.
"If we don't know what we're all doing, if we all become very parochial, then what we really do is hurt ourselves — not help ourselves," said Swarthout, who is also a state-certified school psychologist. "Thirty years ago, we would never have sat around a table like that."