Guidelines

I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :








Wednesday, August 27, 2008

ACLU Files Federal Suit against SR County Schools--Is Escambia Next?

The ACLU has filed a Federal Lawsuit against Santa Rosa County Schools. This gets my attention because a few months back the Escambia County School District was hit with a very broad Public Records Request from the ACLU. see link below

http://jeffbergoshblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/aclu-requests-information-from-ecsd.html


To the best of my knowledge, the ECSD has not, as of yet, turned over to the ACLU all the information they've requested. We have given them much but I believe we are still gathering the rest of the information they've requested.

Not surprisingly, this story has not been picked up by our local news outlets (PNJ,WEAR, INWEEKLY) ---but NWFlorida Daily news broke the story right away, realizing this is a big deal. Here was their story

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/school_10638___article.html/prayers_district.html


Full background of the suit, as well as a .pdf of the complaint, is on the ACLU website here

http://www.aclufl.org/news_events/index.cfm?action=viewRelease&emailAlertID=3663



As I've stated before, I agree with a very small sliver of items the ACLU pushes---most importantly the right of free speech. However, lawsuits like this one are disappointing; Suing over a prayer? In my way of thinking, there are a lot more pressing issues in America of 2008 on which we should focus.

I wish Santa Rosa well in their defense of this lawsuit.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ACLU is slowly, systematically attempting to stifle free religious expression in america. what do they say about "in god we trust" on currency?
Hope the school system shoves this suit right down their throats