KY school district promises to stop giving bibles to students

A Central Kentucky school district says administrators will not give bibles to students after a parent complained last spring to a national watchdog that aims to protect the separation of church and state.

Rebecca G. McCoy, a lawyer for the Clark County School District, told the Freedom From Religion Foundation the district is “committed to ensuring school faculty will not be distributing bibles and other religious literature to students,” according to a news release this week from the foundation.

“The Freedom From Religion Foundation is pleased that Clark County Public Schools staff members in Winchester will cease violating the right of their students to be free from religious coercion,” the group said in the news release.

On the last day of the 2024-2025 school year, a middle school assistant principal in the district handed out bibles in a classroom, according to a letter the foundation sent to Clark County Superintendent Dustin Howard.

A parent then complained to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which says it aims to protect the constitutionally protected separation of church and state and educate the public on matters of non-theism.

“The bible distribution needlessly marginalized all students and families who do not practice Christianity,” Kyle Steinberg, a legal fellow at the foundation, wrote in the letter.

McCoy thanked Freedom from Religion officials for alerting the district to the incident.

It marks at least the third time the foundation has been contacted this year about a Kentucky school district.

In March, the nonprofit said it stopped a public school teacher from assigning religious assignments to students in Russell County Schools.

And this month, the Herald-Leader reported that administrators in the Breathitt County School District received additional training after a parent objected to a school assembly that included a Christian band and distribution of a devotional pamphlet.