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Separation of church and state has prevailed once again in Idaho. The seemingly never-ending saga of controversy and debates on the use of the Bible by the Nampa Classical Academy seems to have come to a rest for the time being.
As reported in the Boise Secular Humanist article, "The curious case of Nampa Classical Academy and the Bible", this story began on August 22, 2008, when the academy received approval from the Idaho Public Charter School Commission to move forward with their plans. However, on June 29, 2009 the controversy started when the academy declared that they would be using the Bible in their curricula, which apparently did not come up when they first reviewed their plans with the Commission in 2008. The academy claimed that their use of the Bible was in line with Idaho's Constitution, but critics still expressed suspicion given the strong Christian education background and influence behind the academy's alleged secular curricula, which turns out was a modified version of a Christian school curricula.
On July 22, 2009, the Public Charter School Commission held a meeting, where part of the agenda included a pre-opening update on the Nampa Classical Academy. The result of that meeting was commission Chairman Bill Goesling's claim that he was comfortable with the use of the Bible as a historical reference, but that he would nonetheless direct the commission's staff to investigate the legality of using the Bible in the academy's classrooms.
The controversy peaked when on Aug 14, 2009 when a religious advocacy group, the Alliance Defense Fund from Arizona, presented a 15-page document to the Idaho Public Charter School Commission, stating that Nampa Classical Academy's use of the Bible was consistent with Idaho's Constitution (details here). This spawned an emergency meeting and investigation by the Commission, which resulted in their denial of the charter school's plans to use the Bible in their curriculum. This decision was based on the Idaho Constitution's directive that "expressly" limits the use of religious text in educational curricula. Apparently, the details of the charter school's use of the Bible in their curricula did not limit the use of the book as a religious text. Charter school Chairman Kyle Borger stated that they would follow the directive. The charter school will begin class this September, but will continue to be under scrutiny by the Idaho Public Charter School Commission.
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