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  • Public Criticism Irks Board Secretary

    Fairfield County School Board members sniped at one another during their regularly scheduled meeting Monday night, held this month in the un-miked, un-amplified media center at Fairfield Middle School.

    The bickering got under way quickly, following the public comment portion of the meeting, during which time Oliver Johnson, a resident of District 6, directed criticism to the Board over this summer’s unauthorized Atlanta field trip (see The Voice, Aug. 24). While Johnson also addressed the District’s high per-pupil expenditures, a trip last year to Myrtle Beach by the Transportation Department and the Board delving into the day-to-day operations of the District, his comments about the Atlanta trip caused tensions to rise.

    “A board member rented an SUV for the exorbitant price of $1,123, when it could have been rented locally for as little $492,” Johnson said. “The trip total was $4,289. Hauling students around to conferences is not board business, but clearly a school administrative function. This Atlanta trip is a prime example of the perverted power and control, the micromanagement and missing accountability that plagues the school board.

    “Could not bullying expertise be found locally or in Columbia?” Johnson asked. “Could the money not be better put to use in the classroom? Has the money been returned to the district?

    “Additionally, another board member attended the same conference in a district car and unanswered questions remain concerning that individual’s mileage claim. Will any money be refunded in this situation? The citizens of this county deserve and demand answers in writing to these questions. This kind of waste and abuse must stop.”

    Following Johnson’s comments, Board Secretary Danielle Miller, who indeed attended the Atlanta conference in a district car and claimed more than $240 in mileage, broke with Board policy and responded to Johnson’s critique.

    “I’d just like to ask Mr. Johnson, if he could, to get all of his facts first before making such statements and judgment calls about what we’re doing, especially when it comes to me and my integrity,” Miller said. “I ask that he speak with me, or anyone else regarding, especially me, regarding the truth . . . before making blatant comments.”

    When Marchella Pauling asked Board Chairwoman Andrea Harrison to remind the Board of the policy prohibiting response to public comments, Miller snapped.

    “Miss Pauling, you’re not going to tell me what to do,” Miller barked before Harrison could bring the gavel down and restore order.

    Miller has refused to answer questions from The Voice about her mileage claim relating to the Atlanta trip, and Monday night was no different. After open session, and before the board retired into executive session, Miller was asked twice if she would care to help the public get their facts straight by addressing whether or not she had returned any of her mileage money to the District. On both occasions, Miller turned her back to The Voice and walked away without offering a response.

    The mood became testy a second time when Board member Annie McDaniel asked why items she had requested to be placed on the agenda had not been included on the evening’s itinerary. When McDaniel attempted to get answers, Board member Beth Reid objected. That discussion, Reid said, should be between McDaniel and the Superintendent (J.R. Green) and not aired out in public session.

    “Are we trying to hide something from the public?” McDaniel asked. “Some of these questions are very detrimental to the District, like why are we holding calculus classes at 7:15 in the morning?”

    Harrison said those questions should have been directed to Green, but McDaniel said the public has a right to hear the answers to those questions. Harrison pointed out that McDaniel did not request the items for the agenda until Friday, at which time the agenda had already been prepared. McDaniel then delivered her list of questions to the Board Secretary so they could be reflected in the minutes.

  • A/C Theft may be Linked to Copper Cases

    The rash of copper thefts and vandalism of air conditioning units that have plagued the county throughout the long hot summer appear to have subsided somewhat in recent weeks, but an incident earlier this month has Fairfield County Sheriff’s investigators wondering if the ‘copper kleptos’ are back at work.

    A local realtor selling a home at 1085 Newberry Road in Winnsboro came by to inspect the property just before 1 p.m. Sept. 6. Although he had been at the property the night before and found everything to be normal, on Sept. 6 he arrived to discover the Westinghouse air conditioning unit, worth $1,000, had been stolen from outside the home.

    Investigators at the scene found that the unit had been carefully disconnected and dragged through the yard. Where the drag marks ended, investigators found a set of tire tracks and evidence that the unit had been loaded into a vehicle.

    The Sheriff’s Office said this case differs considerably from the rash of copper thefts that primarily targeted churches over the last few months. In those cases, the Sheriff’s Office said, the air conditioning units were dismantled on site, leaving behind thousands of dollars in damage in exchange for a few dollars’ worth of recyclable copper components. In this case, however, the entire unit was hauled away, as if someone intended to employ it for their own uses.

    One key piece of evidence, on the other hand, was found at the Newberry Road scene linking it to previous cases. Investigators were able to lift a shoe print from the dirt near where the unit had been connected at the Newberry Road home and matched it to a print found in the ground at one of this summer’s church larcenies.

  • Stolen Autos Traced to Ridgeway

    A Ridgeway man was arrested and two stolen cars recovered earlier this month in a suspected auto theft ring that stretches from the Upstate to the Midlands.

    Investigators with the City of Spartanburg Police Department utilized the GPS unit in a stolen Ford Crown Victoria, worth $3,000, to track the vehicle to a residence in the 300 block of Bishop Squirewell Road in Ridgeway Sept. 7. Fairfield County Sheriff’s investigators were dispatched to the home just before noon and, while they did, indeed, find a Crown Vic up on blocks in the front yard of the home, it was not the Crown Vic they were looking for.

    After running the vehicle’s VIN number, however, investigators were able to determine that this Crown Vic, worth $4,000 and which had only just received a fresh coat of red paint, had also been reported as stolen out of Spartanburg. Eugene McClurkin, 62, of 343 Bishop Squirewell Road, told investigators the Crown Vic they were looking for had been driven away from the home just before the Sheriff’s Office arrived.

    McClurkin would not, however, tell investigators who had driven away in the Crown Vic or who had dropped off the freshly painted Crown Vic in his yard. McClurkin was subsequently arrested and charged with possession of stolen property.

    Just after 4 p.m., investigators received a call from a woman living in the 4000 block of Highway 21 S. in Ridgeway who stated someone had cut a cable blocking access to a driveway to a wooded area near her home. On the property, located approximately 8 miles from the Bishop Squirewell Road residence, the woman said she had found a car sitting up on concrete blocks. Upon arrival, investigators were able to determine that the car was the stolen Crown Victoria about which they had originally received the call earlier that day.

    The Sheriff’s Office said Spartanburg Police suspect the cars are being hauled to a shop in Elgin and being mechanically altered – or “chopped.” Ridgeway does not appear to be a base of operations for the auto theft ring, but merely a stopover in this specific case.

  • Hospital Healing, Faces Pricey Mandates

    Fairfield Memorial Hospital continues on the road to financial recovery, the hospital’s board of trustees reported to County Council Monday night at their quarterly joint meeting. While the quarterly meetings came along with the County’s $2 million bailout of the hospital earlier this year, Council Chairman David Ferguson said the progress the hospital has made has been substantial enough to curtail those meetings.

    “We feel like the hospital is headed in the right direction,” Ferguson said. “I’m going to ask Council (at their Sept. 24 meeting) to change these meetings to every six months.”

    The change, Ferguson said, would come after the next regularly scheduled quarterly meeting in January, provided Council gives the suggestion the thumbs up.

    Tim Mitchell, the hospital’s chief financial officer, reported that the hospital remains current on its payments into the State Retirement System, as well as its contributions to employees’ insurance premiums. Hospital CEO Mike Williams told Council the hospital’s initiatives and strategic plan has been successful at building revenue for Fairfield Memorial. The hospital opened its FMH Specialty Clinic in June and an Orthopedic and Dermatology Clinic last month. The hospital’s senior initiatives have also met with considerable success, and in August the hospital earned a three-year accreditation through the Joint Commission.

    Still, there remains room for improvement, Williams said. For example, Williams noted that County EMS drivers were sending too many patients to emergency rooms at other hospitals for conditions that could be treated at Fairfield Memorial.  And, Mitchell reported, August saw the hospital experience a net loss of $149,000. The summer months are typically low-volume months for the hospital, Mitchell said, but this August’s patient numbers were very close to numbers in August 2011, when the hospital actually showed a profit. The difference between this August and last August, Mitchell said, was the number of charity care patients and self-pay bad debt write-off.

    The hospital also has some considerable expenses looming in its future, namely a new computer system, known as Cerner/Tribridge, designed to share patient information with other health care entities.

    “I need Council to be very cognizant that these initiatives, while we agree with every one of them, are not necessarily directed by the hospital,” Board Chairman Nelson Lacy said. “This Cerner system is one that is very important, because we are meeting federally mandated requirements.”

    Cerner must be in place by 2015, Lacy said, at a cost of approximately $2 million. But between now and 2015, the hospital can access nearly half of that in grants and stimulus funds.

    “We have an opportunity between now and 2015 to take advantage of money that can help us reduce the cost,” Lacy said. “If we’re not in place by 2015, not only do we lose the ability to have assistance in reducing the cost, we will be technically fined. We will have to give up part of our income because we’re not part of Cerner or a Cerner-type program.”

    On average, the hospital would need to generate approximately $10,000 in additional revenue each month over the next six years to cover the cost of the new computer system, Mitchell reported – essentially the same as it would cost to upgrade and maintain the hospital’s current system in order to meet the federally mandated requirements.

  • The osprey and the owl: A battle for the bird’s eye view

    The osprey has to settle for new quarters down the block.

    An interesting sight I saw on a recent trip to Florida was an osprey nest that had been built on top of a traffic signal at a very busy intersection. The interesting fact about this nest is that the osprey had been booted from her original nest by an owl. You might wonder how this could happen, since the adult osprey weighs close to 5 pounds with a wing span of 50 to 71 inches compared to the owl weighing in at 3 pounds with a wing span of only 40 to 60 inches.

    This osprey had originally built her nest high on top of one of the lights at the local baseball field where I imagine she felt safe and away from danger, as well as taking advantage of the warmth from the light. But now the great horned owl has taken over her home. Stadium officials cannot do anything with the nest because the owls are federally protected as a migratory species. Experts say it is extremely rare to see the reclusive nocturnal species, one of North America’s largest, in such a public place. Yet, she is perched atop the platform that was once used by the osprey, above the right-field lights. Last year the osprey made her nest over the left-field lights and the owl did not bother her there. There is some concern about twigs, prey parts and bird droppings falling on the fans, but they have never come close to any of the fans.

    Building a nest is beneath the great horned owl. They let ospreys, hawks and crows do that kind of grunt work, then they rudely boot them from the nest. This devilish-looking squatter seems to have nudged the osprey to the traffic light about two blocks away. A gnarl of twigs dangles precariously from the nest where this predator had a bird’s-eye view of spring training that went on below. This owl can hear a mouse’s heartbeat from 10 yards away. Despite its sensitivities, the owl with the constant scowl perches motionless, unmoved by the roar of the cheering fans, the pops of bat-cracking line drives, the organ playing or any other sounds of baseball. She is not fazed by players rounding bases or people carrying hotdogs, even though she is highly attuned to motion.

    An owl’s eyes are 10 times as light sensitive as human eyes. They can snatch a slithering snake in the grass at night from hundreds of feet up, swallow a small rabbit whole and eat squirrels, muskrats and skunks. Not sure how long she will be on this nest since the young owls can fly in 10 weeks, but the male and female owl will care for the young for five months. Officials at the ballpark have used decoy owls to spook off other birds, but the owl does not flinch. Officials have said that they will not try to keep her away next year.

    That is why the osprey had to rebuild her nest in a different area. The osprey was just no match for the cunning owl. The osprey is from the hawk and eagle family and is a fish-eating bird of prey. She tolerates a variety of habitats, nesting in any location near a body of water that provides a food supply. It is found on all continents except Antarctica. The osprey and the owl have some similarities in the fact that they are the only two birds of prey whose outer toes are reversible, allowing them to grasp their prey with two toes in front and two behind. This is very helpful when grasping a slippery fish. Fish make up most of its diet and ospreys can be as large as 14 inches in length and weighing up to 68 ounces. Their vision is so good that they can detect underwater objects in the air from as high up as 130 feet above the water. It will then hover before plunging feet first into the water and it can close its nostrils to keep out the water during these dives. In addition to fish, the osprey will eat rodents, rabbits, hares, amphibians, other birds and small reptiles. The osprey mates for life and the female lays two to four eggs within a month. The eggs are incubated for five weeks and the chicks weigh only 2 ounces. The typical lifespan is seven to 10 years, although there are records of individuals who have lived to the age of 20 to 25 years.

    So you see there are a few similarities between the osprey and the owl besides liking the same spot for a nest. The owl won this contest, the osprey had to move out and adjust to the change, but the owl ‘didn’t give a hoot!’

  • Fairfield County Incident Reports

    FCSO

    29130

    Sand Dollar Lane, 100 block, at 6:25 a.m. Aug. 26. Someone stole a Honda Odyssey of undetermined value from outside a home. The van had been left unlocked and the keys left in the ignition. The van was recovered after being involved in an accident on Old River Road.

    Harmony Circle, 100 block, between 4:48 and 4:51 p.m. Aug. 29. Someone stole a pit bull puppy worth $200 from the yard of a home.

    29180

    Hudson Street, 600 block, between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. Aug. 15. Someone broke into a home and stole jewelry worth $100.

    Pumphouse Road, 1500 block, between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m. Aug. 16. Someone vandalized the inside of a home and a car parked outside the home causing $300 in damage.

    Winter Street, 100 block, between 11 a.m. Aug. 16 and 10:30 a.m. Aug. 17. Three juveniles and an adult male were arrested after someone broke into a home and a car parked outside the home and stole video game equipment and other items worth $1,000.

    Taylor Creek Landing, 100 block, between 10:37 p.m. Aug. 17 and 11:15 p.m. Aug. 18. Someone broke into a Jeep parked at a boat landing causing an undetermined amount of damage and stole a purse and other items worth $31.

    Reservoir Road, 5800 block, between 6:08 and 6:20 p.m. Aug. 24. Deputies recovered a 1986 Chevrolet Celebrity of undetermined value and stolen out of Richland County from the driveway of a home.

    Cherry Road, 100 block, between 10:54 and 11:19 a.m. Aug. 25. Someone stole two rocking chairs worth $150 from the front porch of a home.

    Columbia Road, 300 block, between 2:20 and 2:28 p.m. Aug. 25. Someone broke into a pickup truck parked at a recreation facility causing $200 in damage and stole a purse and other items worth $30.

    Old Chester Road, 100 block, between 8 p.m. Aug. 25 and 7:21 a.m. Aug. 26. Someone stole a 2012 Toyota pickup truck worth $25,000 from outside a home. The keys had been left inside the truck, which was later recovered after being involved in a hit-and-run on the Highway 321 Bypass in Winnsboro.

    Cedar Street, 200 block, between 3:13 and 3:15 p.m. Sept. 1. Someone stole a cell phone worth $100 from a home.

    Eighth Street, 200 block, between 9:29 and 9:33 p.m. Sept. 1. Someone broke into the crawl space underneath a home and stole a bicycle and other items worth $115.

  • County Hosts Second Meeting on Water Alliance

    With a little more than two weeks remaining on a deadline to either pony up to join a regional water authority or risk being left in the lurch on future water sales, Fairfield County Council hosted a work session Sept. 5 to gather information from Margaret Pope. Pope is an attorney with the Pope Zeigler law firm, which, along with the Santee Cooper energy company, is assisting the Town of Winnsboro in forming the authority.

    Pope addressed a similar meeting July 9 hosted by the Town of Winnsboro, but scheduling conflicts prevented County Council from attending as a whole. Two County Council members – David Brown and Carolyn Robinson – did attend the July 9 meeting in an unofficial capacity.

    Since the July 9 meeting, the Town has received positive responses from the Town of Ridgeway and Mid-County Water to joining the Town of Winnsboro in the Regional Water Supply Authority for Fairfield County. The Town of Blythewood, according to Winnsboro Mayor Roger Gaddy, has also come on board, even going so far as to send in their $5,000 fee, which buys them a seat on the charter committee. The Jenkinsville Water Company, meanwhile, has indicated no interest in participating, while the Mitford Water Company is locked into a 40-year contract with Chester County for the purchase of their water supply.

    A lack of total unity on the water front is something County Council Chairman David Ferguson said could be problematic.

    “According to our representatives in Washington, until we get one entity that supplies water for this county the grants would not be forthcoming,” Ferguson said at the Sept. 5 meeting. And grants and low interest rates are essential, Ferguson said, for growing and maintaining any water system.

    “Unless we could get specifically low rates, we would be hard pressed to run lines to the entire county,” Ferguson said. “We would have to know we could get those lower costing loans.”

    The chances of gaining access to those grants and low-interest loans, Pope said, would be greatly increased through a central water authority.

    “I promise you, your chances of doing so are greater together than alone,” Pope said.

    The Town of Ridgeway, although represented at the July 9 meeting, did not attend the Sept. 5 meeting. Ridgeway Mayor Charlene Herring, reached by phone last week, said a last minute scheduling conflict prevented her from attending and added that Ridgeway Town Council was to vote on the issue at their Sept. 13 meeting. Herring echoed Pope’s assessment of the need for a central entity in order to secure funding.

    “We are very interested (in joining),” Herring said. “We do need this water authority, so we can have more power to get grants and loans.”

    But in order for Ridgeway to pay its way into the water authority, Herring said the Town would have to dig into its savings.

    Under the proposed plan, members will be expected to contribute $5,000 to a Charter Committee bank account to raise capital for incorporating costs. If at least $15,000 hasn’t been raised by the Sept. 30 deadline, the entire project goes up in smoke.

    “If we haven’t raised that money by the September deadline, then the Town will probably have to look at phasing distributors off the system,” John Fantry, special counsel to the Town of Winnsboro, said last month. “It is a ‘pay to play’ system. If Winnsboro is the only one putting up any money to do this, if other people aren’t committed, then we’re going to have to take care of ourselves, and that means cutting people off of wholesale water.”

    Mid-County Water, while they have expressed an interest in joining the authority, is currently unable to do so under their current structure, Pope explained.

    “You must be a political subdivision in order to join a water authority,” Pope said, “so Mid-County would have to convert to a Special Purpose District.”

    And that is not as difficult as it sounds, Pope said.

    Once everyone has paid into the authority, Ferguson wanted to know how the benefits would be meted out and how capital costs would be divided among the membership.

    Pope said part of forming the authority would include each entity outlining how much water they would require. The contract would include how much water the plant could pull and how much water the plant could deliver in a 24-hour period.

    “If you owned a third of the capacity, then you paid for one-third of the cost,” Pope said. “Whether you used it or not. It is a great way for everybody to take a good look at themselves in the mirror and say ‘How much capacity do I really want?’ because it’s ‘how much do I really want to pay for’.”

    Operational costs, Pope said, are usually divided according to how much water any one entity is pulling out of the system, compared to how much total water is being pulled from the system by all entities combined.

    “If you buy a lot, but initially you don’t pull a lot, your operational costs may be smaller and your capital costs may be larger,” Pope said.

    The most difficult part of the process, Pope said, was hammering out the contract between the participants. And the contract, she added, is where all the assurances are as to how much water members can look forward to. For example, Pope said that in Anderson County – a water authority she also helped guide into existence – a member has a right to a certain percentage of water. The member can sell that water to other members freely, but to sell it to someone outside of the authority it must first offer that water to the other individual members.

    Water authorities are on the rise in South Carolina, Pope said, with at least 100 of them across the state, and the bylaws governing them can be as restrictive or as broad as the membership desires.

    “A water authority is a great way to share costs,” Pope said, “and a great way to have an investment in something that is going to benefit many people beyond just one entity.”

  • Winnsboro Man Killed in Car Crash

    A Winnsboro man succumbed Sept. 5 to injuries sustained in a single-car accident earlier that night on Old Camden Road.

    Quinten Deon Williams, 27, of Lamplighter Apartments in Winnsboro, was pronounced dead at Richland Memorial Hospital, Fairfield County Coroner Barkley Ramsey said, nearly two hours after the car he was driving struck a telephone pole 2.4 miles east of Winnsboro.

    According to the S.C. Highway Patrol, Williams was driving a 1998 Mitsubishi westbound on Old Camden Road when, at 8:15 p.m., he lost control of the car and ran off the right side of the road. Ramsey said the car wrapped itself around the pole and it took rescue workers 45 minutes to cut Williams from the wreckage. Williams was then airlifted to Richland Memorial, where he was pronounced dead at 10:02 p.m., Ramsey said.

    The speed of the vehicle and other extenuating factors of the accident remain under investigation, the Highway Patrol said.

  • Rezoning Effort Dies on First Reading

    An effort to rezone nearly 7 and a half acres of land on Toatley Road in Winnsboro died at Monday night’s County Council meeting when the first reading of the ordinance failed to garner a second.

    The property is owned by Melvin Stevenson, who sought to have the land rezoned from RD (Rural Resource District) to B-1 (Limited Business District) in order to make way for the Williams Center for Counseling. Stevenson was represented at the meeting by his brother Al Stevenson, who told council that the proposed Williams Center would cater to at-risk children, between the ages of 5 and 18, in the county. The clientele would be recommended to the Center by the School District, Stevenson said, and would include children who had not yet entered the legal system, but were at potential risk for doing so. The Center would have served between three and five children a day, Stevenson told council, and would be headed by Dr. Karen Williams.

    Councilman Kamau Marcharia placed the motion on the floor after council heard from Stevenson as well as several members of the Toatley Road community who spoke against the rezoning.

    “I was a little dismayed, that when folks come forth and speak about trying to do something to prevent something before it happens – not just when someone is a criminal or has gotten in trouble – we’re going to try to prevent this,” Marcharia said near the close of the meeting. “No more than three children a day would be (at the facility), who had never been in serious trouble, and try to keep them out of trouble, and that was denied. We either pay now or we pay later. I don’t understand it, that when it comes down to looking out for our children, there’s such apathy, indifference. I would like each council member to tell me, what was really the harm, if that place was put there, what was the danger to the community? Who is going to be hurt by that? How could we stop these kids from getting some kind of service they really need and probably deserve? We just passed it by and didn’t really act on it. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

    Carrie Matthews, who lives in the community, spoke against the facility.

    “This is not a mom-and-pop store or a backyard beauty parlor that would be fulfilling the needs of the community,” Matthews said before presenting council with a petition of signatures against the zoning request. “These are clients who have a history of behavioral problems. There is a concern among vulnerable people in the community. We feel strongly there are surely other services available in town, and if not, Winnsboro would be the more logical place to locate such a facility.”

    The possibility of increased trespassing, crime and traffic, Matthews said, were major concerns among the residents of the isolated, quiet community.

    Ron Stowers, the County Building and Zoning Department Director, told council that B-1, while consistent with other land uses in RD zoning, also includes 71 other uses.

    “Anything that is permitted use in B-1 would be allowed to go in there,” Stowers said, “either in lieu of what they’re talking about or in addition to that.”

    “That makes you stop and think about it a little bit,” Council member Mary Lynn Kinley said.

    “Once it’s zoned, that’s what it is,” Council Chairman David Ferguson said. “If that business goes in and ceases to operate there, that piece of property is still zoned in that new zoning area. That’s also a concern of mine. You have to look past that one initial thing that it might be because it could turn into some other things. And 70 is a pretty big list.”

    Ferguson said some questions about whether the proposed clinic would be offering services not offered elsewhere in the county would have to be addressed before third reading of the ordinance. However, with the failure of the first reading, those questions will remain unanswered. After the meeting, Marcharia said he was surprised the ordinance did not at least pass the first reading and move on to the next phase where questions such as those could have been debated.

  • Civil Liberties Group Launches Probe into School Districts’ Use of Prayer

    It is no secret that the Fairfield County School Board of Trustees opens their meetings with a prayer, but a January ruling against a S.C. school district in U.S. District Court and new efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union may spell the end of that practice.

    Bolstered by their legal victory earlier this year over the Chesterfield County School District, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched the Religious Freedom Goes to School campaign, aimed, they say, at strengthening religious freedom in South Carolina’s public schools. As part of that campaign, the ACLU sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to school districts statewide in an effort to determine if policies are in place to preserve the First Amendment rights of all of their students.

    Since their victory in the Chesterfield case, Victoria Middleton, executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, said the ACLU has received a number of complaints from across the state. Two weeks ago, the Fairfield County School District received that FOIA request from Susan Dunn, legal director for the ACLU of South Carolina.

    “(This program) is an effort to get an idea of what the policies are at the districts,” Middleton said, “if they do have policies, and the way they can comply with the First Amendment in regard to freedom of religion.”

    In addition to policies, the FOIA request seeks records of all programs, schedules, itineraries, calendars, agendas, minutes or news publications referring to, relating to or reflecting the inclusion of prayer, invocations, benedictions, blessings, proselytizing or other religious remarks or exercises in any school-sponsored event, including (but not limited to) graduation exercises, athletic events, school board meetings, ceremonies and banquets, baccalaureate services, school event calendars, daily announcements and school newsletters.

    This latest campaign by the ACLU is not an effort to prevent individuals from freely and publicly expressing their faith, Middleton said, but an effort to prevent the government – which includes public schools – from imposing faith upon anyone. The government cannot impede, prevent or promote or impose religious exercises, she said.

    “We have children of all faiths, and children of no faith, in our schools,” she said. “A child can pray at school. The ACLU has defended the rights of children to pray in schools. But public schools are not Sunday schools.”

    Middleton would not comment specifically on whether or not the practices of the Fairfield County School Board constitute a violation of the First Amendment, but said opening meetings with a prayer could pose a problem.

    “We’re trying to get the information into us in a systematic way, look at their policies and look at their practices,” she said. “Yes, opening board meetings with a prayer can be problematic, without making a judgment on a particular case.”

    Reached for comment on their policies Friday morning, the Fairfield County School District issued the following statement:

    “The FOIA allows 15 business days within which to respond. The district is still within the time line. A reply is being prepared by Childs and Halligan (attorneys for the district).”

    A phone call to the offices of Childs and Halligan was not returned at press time.

    In Chesterfield, Middleton said, a middle school student was the victim of religious coercion. Teachers were praying over him, she said, and he was being sent to detention for not attending an evangelical pep rally.

    “It’s hard for a 12-year-old to stand up for their rights on their own,” she said.

    In December 2011, that student’s parent sued the Chesterfield County School District, and in January of this year, U.S. District Court judge R. Bryan Harwell ruled in favor of the parent. As a result, Chesterfield was issued a permanent injunction against prayer at school events, and school officials were enjoined from promoting their religious beliefs to students. The Chesterfield School District was also stuck with the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees.