Alberta school board terminates agreement with Christian school over dispute about Bible verse

A public school board in Alberta, Canada has announced that it will terminate its agreement with a Christian school because it refused to remove Bible verses from its student handbook.

At a special meeting on Thursday, the trustees of the Battle River School Division (BRSD) voted in favor of cutting ties with the Cornerstone Christian Academy (CCA), which has been operated by the school board under an alternative program since 2009.

The BRSD stated in a letter that it will no longer operate the Christian Academy after June 30, 2018.

CBC reported that the board is also terminating the lease agreement for the school building in Kingman, 27 kilometers north of Camrose, as of next June.

According to a press release issued by Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), which represents the Christian academy, the school board wanted Cornerstone to sign a communication agreement that amounted to a "gag order."

The document released by the JCCF indicated that the dispute stemmed from a Bible verse the school had planned to include in its student handbook.

The Christian school had planned to include a reference from Corinthians which state that neither "fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate ... shall inherit the kingdom of God."

A spokesperson for the school board said that the trustees were concerned that the verses may contravene Alberta's human rights legislation.

"As a public school board we must ensure that any educational programming provided complies with board policy and procedure, provincial legislation including the Alberta Human Rights Act and the School Act," the school board stated in a letter to Cornerstone chair Deanna Margel.

"Unless those concerns can be resolved, we are unable to maintain the current relationship," it added.

According to Global News, Margel had stated that the school had agreed to drop the Bible verses from the handbook, but she feared that the board still wanted to limit what Bible verses the school is allowed to teach.

The academy stated in a news release that it wants to continue working with the school board. The board, on the other hand, said that it is hoping that the termination of the agreement will create a new opportunity for BRSD to lay the groundwork for a "new working relationship" with Cornerstone. The board noted that its master agreement with the academy provides for a 365-day "transition period" once the agreement is terminated.

Margel said that the board's decision to terminate the agreement "makes no sense if they truly desire to continue working together."

"It seems unwise, and completely unnecessary, to throw away years of productive co-operation in mere weeks because we've simply hit an unusual bump in the road. Things just don't add up," she added.