Caught trying to sidestep rules to teach based from the Bible

The Nampa Classical Academy, a charter school in Boise, Idaho, tried to wean its way around laws forbidding educational facilities from using religious texts – namely, the Bible – as sources of instruction. They've been caught, and are now getting whacked on the fingers.

The commission released a memo stating that the Idaho Constitution "expressly" limits use of religious texts. Officials with the new Nampa charter school had planned to use the Bible and other religious texts as a primary source for instruction but not to teach religion.

The Nampa school will follow the commission's directive, school board Chairman Kyle Borger said after the decision made at the commission's meeting in Boise.

"We always said we would follow directions of the commission," Borger said. "And we will continue to do so."

Right – except when you get caught deliberately ferreting around said directions to try and instill Bible-based "instruction" (read: "nonsense") in your classrooms. Why do these people always think they're speaking to cretins who can't tell the obvious?

But then, that might not come as very surprising from these folks, considering they're ardent creationists who have already tried to introduce that failed old "different theories" bullshit in their teachings:

"Our approach is to explore truth and we look at different theories," Nampa Classical Academy headmaster Val Bush said. "We will teach some of the theories that have been advanced by different perspectives. We will not be exclusive on that."

[...]

Bush stopped short of saying creationism would be a specific part of the school's curriculum. The new charter school opens Sept. 8.

"There are several versions of creationism," Bush said. "We're going to explore different theories of it."

Nampa Classical Academy teachers would be guarded if they answered students' questions regarding the teachers' thoughts on the origin of life, Bush said.

"There are theories and nothing's really proven so we'll go through the theories," Bush said.

Nothing but the usual debunked creationist bits of silliness. "They're just different ways of interpreting the evidence!" "Nothing's been proven, they're just theories!" "Give Creationism a chance!" Etc. ...

Sounds like a certain charter school board is just waitin' for a spankin'.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)