School superintendents discuss religion

Columbia Falls School District superintendent Steve Bradshaw joined two other Flathead Valley school district superintendents recently in an Act for America panel on May 14 to discuss religion in schools.

Bradshaw, Kalispell Public Schools superintendent Mark Flatau and Bigfork School District superintendent Matt Jensen are completing their first year as superintendents here in the Flathead.

Act for America is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots organization devoted to promoting national security and defeating terrorism, according to their Web site, and it has an active local chapter.

Questions explored how public schools handle religion in their curricula as well as in making accommodations for students’ special needs, with a focus on both Islam and the Judeo-Christian tradition.

An example of a question was: “How would you handle a request for a prayer room, halal food, or prayer time during Ramadan, or fasting during Ramadan, or other religious practices of the Islamic faith in our public schools, and how do those compare to accommodations for Judeo-Christian traditions or practices?”

All three said they haven’t faced such requests in Northwest Montana, and that they are more typically faced with controversy surrounding holidays such as Christmas.

Bradshaw focused in on how the question singled out Islam and Christianity.

“For us to survive as a country, in my mind, we have to be respectful of other cultures, and with other cultures come religions,” Bradshaw said. “I don’t believe I would give anything more than I believe the law says that we have to give when it comes to religion.”

Bradshaw described a Christmas concert “battle” from when he was an administrator in Sitka, Alaska. The school district served Jewish, Filipino and native communities.

“I can remember being taken to task about the Christmas concert because there were so many Christian songs and, to me, I looked at that as, ‘OK, wait a minute. Ninety percent of our community is Christian, so why not have Christian songs in there?” Bradshaw said. “At the same time, I think we, again, need to understand cultures. It doesn’t hurt for other cultures to be represented.”

Bradshaw said that by the time he left Sitka, the school concert not only offered Jewish songs but Alaskan native songs and Filipino songs.

“I live in a small town for a reason. We don’t have to fight these issues for the most part. It’s a great place to raise kids,” Bradshaw continued. “At the same time, our kids are going to go out in the world, and they need to understand that it’s not like Montana in a lot of places and they need to be respectful of those other cultures.”