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Angels on Ravenswood school memorial at issue

RAVENSWOOD, W.Va. – A memorial garden at Ravenswood Middle School may have to remove depictions of angels after a group wanting to maintain a clear separation of church and state filed a complaint with the Jackson County School District.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to Jackson County Schools Superintendent Blaine Hess on Jan. 20 informing him they had been contacted by a parent regarding a holiday concert at Ravenswood High School with Christian themes, including a live nativity scene, and a garden display at Ravenswood Middle School with Latin crosses, Bible verses and images of angels on display.

FFRF is a national nonprofit organization, which works to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, said Patrick C. Elliot, staff attorney for the FFRF in the letter.

“It is illegal for a public school to compel students to participate in religious expression such as acting out the legendary birth of Jesus,” Elliot wrote. “The performance has a clearly devotional message and thus would be appropriate in a church setting, but not in a public school.”

Elliot wrote that he understood from the concerned parent that failure to participate in the holiday concert by choir students would harm their grades.

The group did not know the purpose of the garden at the middle school, but said they are sensitive to the possibility it was meant as a memorial.

However, since it included crosses, Bible verses and angels …” it is the school’s constitutional obligation to find a religiously neutral means of expressing remembrance in a memorial display,” the group said.

“A reasonable student would view the school’s display of Latin crosses and New Testament passages as a clear endorsement of Christianity by the school,” Elliot wrote. “Whatever the purpose of the school’s garden display, that purpose can be achieved without the use of sectarian religious symbols and biblical passages.”

Ravenswood Mayor Michael Ihle said the memorial was put up to honor a teacher at the school, Mrs. JoAnn Christy.

“She touched so many lives, including mine,” Ihle said. “This is a small token in remembrance of her at a place she loved. She was taken too soon from us.”

Ihle said he respects that not everyone has the same beliefs and they want people to feel welcome in their community.

The memorial included things that were important to Christy.

“She never pushed her views on anyone,” the mayor said.

In Facebook posts, members of the community said planters and other free-standing items around the memorial were removed, including a cross, reference to a scripture and a free standing angel. Images of angels were included in the concrete groundwork around the memorial.

Amy Jo Holley believes there is no legal basis to remove the angels.

“I indicated my continued (personal, religious, and legal) belief that an angel is no more religious than a demon/devil, and if the school’s mascot was permissible, so were the limited angels around my mother’s memorial,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

The Ravenswood school sports teams are called the Red Devils.

“If an angel is considered Christian then a devil would be in the same vein,” Ihle said. “No one is complaining about our team’s name.”

The point of the team’s name was brought up in correspondence with Elliot by The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. He was asked if they had any plans to address the team’s name as well. He did not respond directly to that question.

The FFRF took issue last year with a Bible verse in the Parkersburg South High School gymnasium and on a PSHS wrestling team web site. The verse has been used as the team’s slogan for years.

The FFRF objected to its use in the gym and on wrestling team T-shirts. The Bible verse was painted over, but the T-shirts were not taken back as the season was over and were not considered part of the team uniform.

Many people wore the T-shirts at board of education meetings to show their support for the team and the verse’s display.

In a prepared statement, Hess said Jackson County Schools has received a complaint from the (FFRF) regarding separation of church and state issues at the two Ravenswood area schools.

“This matter is certainly upsetting to a community which holds strong convictions in matters of faith,” Hess wrote. “The complaint has been reviewed and initial direction has been provided to the schools involved which will move toward compliance with rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This matter will be discussed at the next regular meeting of the Jackson County Board of Education on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015 at 7 p.m.”

Holley encourages people to let the board know they support the angels and to do it respectfully.

“It’s currently a waiting game to see what the board decides to do with the angels,” she wrote. “If they choose to leave the concrete slab, I’ll work to have the free-standing angel replaced. If they decide it needs to go, it won’t go and stay gone without a fight.”

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