politics

Petition For PPS Choirs At Grotto Draws 1,000 Signatures

By April Baer (OPB)
Portland, Oregon Oct. 9, 2015 7:25 p.m.

Inger Klekacz / OPB

About 1,000 people have signed

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a petition

asking Portland Public Schools to reconsider

a decision

barring school choirs from singing at a local Christmas Festival.

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The festival is held at The Grotto

, a Catholic shrine on Portland's east side.

The petition's author, Jennifer O'Leary sang in Grant High School choirs when she was a student in the mid '90s. She says she started the petition when she heard of the district's policy change this week.

"The motivation of any of these choirs is not a religious motivation," O'Leary said. "It's an opportunity for the students to perform. It's a chance to celebrate their music program, show the public that music in PPS is strong, and let's celebrate it."

O'Leary lives in Portland and has a child who's not yet of school age.

Andrew Seidel is an attorney with the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He says the foundation contacted Portland, suggesting grounds for a constitutional suit on two fronts if the districts sent students to sing at the Grotto's $9-a-headfestival.

Inger Klekacz / OPB

"Really what it is, is the schools providing free labor for the church to then charge and recoup money," Seidel said, "because those students are performing. But then you're still left with the significant issue of the public schools taking public school children to church."

Seidel said the foundation contacted about 20 regional districts with the same message. Only a few, he says, formally responded, and Aberdeen in Washington is the only one who also told the foundation it would not send students to the Festival this year.

Tom Fullmer, the Grotto's director, says he's not aware of other schools having notified that they will not attend for their reserved slots in this year's festival.

Christine Miles with Portland Public Schools says the district has heard from some parents who said they'd volunteer to take singers to the festival outside school hours (although, according to the Grotto, the slots PPS reserved may fill up quickly). Miles acknowledged many were not happy with the decision.

"The Grotto is beautiful, and a tradition," Miles said. But she adds the district "is on a very tight budget, so we want to make sure if we fight something in court, it'll be a good use of resources. After our legal team looked at it, they said there's a good chance we'd be violating the law."

Jennifer O'Leary said she will try to speak about the issue at an Oct. 20 school board meeting. She said she doesn't want to tell others their beliefs are wrong, but rather explore a compromise for the district.

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