Public funds for religious schools: Legal, ethical and spiritual questions

A church school can’t exclude religious teaching from any part of its daily operations, so there is an inherent contradiction in claims that some courses have nothing to do with the values inherent in the religion.

But the lure of lucre is powerful, especially when the state makes public funds available, contrary to the clear constitutional mandate: “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

Under the Dunleavy administration, which has encouraged school districts to make up their own rules on what is legal, there has been a growing trend to help private schools get public funding for tuition reimbursement, a practice declared unconstitutional in a landmark court case.

Two years ago, a campaign led by the wife of Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor got many private schools and families interested in ways to tap into state funds for private schools. The attorney general and his wife had lobbied an Anchorage charter school the previous year to start using public funds for private and religious schools. The Taylors wanted $8,000 in public funds to pay most of the tuition for two children attending St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, a Catholic elementary school.

“I know that other schools have started to use this approach with some of their families,” Brian Ross, principal of Lumen Christi High School in Anchorage, wrote May 13, 2022 in a newsletter to families at his school about tuition reimbursement.

Ross, a retired Marine and a veteran teacher, urged caution. He described his concerns about the legal, moral and spiritual questions that would come with public money.

“While I know those that are starting to become involved in it are super excited about the possibility, going forward, I would like to examine and discern this initiative more closely and ensure that we are looking at it from all angles. I intend to bring in some members of our illustrious School Board as well as the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau to assist in this effort in coming weeks,” he wrote.

He quoted church sources as saying that the Gospel should be part of all school teaching and that all courses should be “infused with the principles of Catholic social teaching.”

“My questions: If we make our math, science, social studies, and/or language arts curriculum ‘nonsectarian’ (i.e. non-religious) to have them approved by the ASD (Anchorage School District) public charter school Family Partnership, then are we undermining the Truth about who we are as a Catholic school? Further, how then are we truly distinct from other schools? Do we end up with a school where we have a solitary religious portion of our curriculum (Theology class) and the rest of the curriculum is just like any public school? As the principal, I’m responsible for the Catholic identity of Lumen, so these questions cause me to pause,” he wrote.

“On the flip side, what is the impact if we do present our curriculum as ‘nonsectarian’ or ‘non-religious’ to meet the Family Partnership requirements for reimbursement, yet actually teach to transform and enrich the world with Gospel values? This includes starting and ending class with prayer and in a specific example, infusing Catholic bioethical moral decision-making considerations into biology units on cloning or stem cell research. If we say one thing while doing another, are we being untruthful and in fact, disingenuous? This too causes me to pause.”

“My concerns in going slowly are to ensure that we don’t “water down” the Catholic identity of Lumen, nor put the school in a position of having accepted taxpayer funding in potential violation of state and federal separation of church and state laws,” he wrote.

“As with anything, I’ll concede that I could be looking at things very simplistically and missing the point. But I think prudence suggests that more research (especially on the legal side) needs to be done to ensure we are not headed down a slippery slope,” he wrote.

Ross and other school and church leaders examined the issues later that year and in early 2023. It was a thoughtful approach.

Other schools, including the “sister school” in Anchorage from the same parish, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, where the attorney general’s children attended, allowed reimbursement for tuition.

The Catholic schools in Fairbanks took that route, saying families could get about $2,500 to $2,600 per student. Other Catholic schools that took part included Holy Rosary Academy and St. John’s.

Numerous non-Catholic churches joined the parade. The church school operated by the church formerly known as the Anchorage Baptist Temple enrolled all of its students in a public correspondence school, qualifying them for $3,000 each.

In the case of Lumen Christi, its private school board set up a committee to “closely examine the use of correspondence program (e.g. Family Partnership) allotment funds by Lumen families for tuition.”

On February 20, 2023 the subcommittee reported its findings. Here are the school board minutes that include an account of the discussion.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the Catholic elementary school, was not advertising the ability to get allotments, the report said. “If parents ask, SEAS staff informs them that they (SEAS) are an approved vendor and are able to work with dual-enrollment schools, Family Partnership included,” the report said.

Dual enrollment refers to students who register at a private school and at a public correspondence school and thereby qualify for an allotment.

One member asked the Family Partnership principal, Jessica Partner, if prayer during a class would make the class ineligible for reimbursement. The minutes say that the Family Partnership official “stated that it is only the curriculum used that is reviewed for reimbursement. The vetting process would not be stating how much of our day was religious but the percentage of the curriculum that is non-religious and reimbursable.”

That means the vetting process was set up to ignore the reality of what was happening in the classroom.

Also in the meeting notes is a comment passed along by the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau that “everything that the school does should be infused with faith.”

Because of the lawsuit challenging portions of the allotment program as unconstitutional, the Archdiocese said that “Lumen should not venture into becoming a vendor for the FP (Family Partnership) program anytime soon.”

“When asked about the current litigation, Family Partnership feels they will win with the likes of the Institute for Justice behind them but expressed that ASD (Anchorage School District) is their boss and if at any time they feel like discontinuing the program they can but they would do so at a natural pause as to not disrupt families using the program,” the minutes said.

The report said “we are anxious for the Archdiocese to make a decision and we feel we are in limbo until that is done.”

On March 6, 2023, Lumen Christi Principal Ross and the Rev. Tom Lilly released a detailed memo on the issue, saying the Archdiocese had released guidance “discouraging the use of public correspondence school allotment funds for tuition purposes.”

It appears this directive from the church would mean that the attorney general and his wife could not be reimbursed with public funds for tuition at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton elementary.

The guidance from the Archdiocese “does clarify that allotment funds can be used for other extracurricular activities at diocesan schools pending the lawsuit by the NEA,” Ross and Lilly wrote.

Families could also use allotments on expenses outside of the school on anything from computers to art and music lessons and private tutoring, they said.

Since then, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman has struck down the laws dealing with allotments as unconstitutional.

Zeman said the plain language of the Alaska Constitution, the minutes of the constitutional convention, and precedent determined by the Alaska Supreme Court “unequivocally demonstrate” that allowing public money to go to private education is illegal.

Family Partnership is no longer a charter school, but a correspondence school, a change brought about by in-fighting and management problems. The Family Partnership Correspondence School is no longer reimbursing families for full-time private school tuition because that practice is unconstitutional, the Anchorage School District said. It does reimburse families for part-time tuition.

Jessica Parker, who had been the Family Partnership principal, is now the principal at the Mountain City Christian Academy, the private school that enrolls all of its students in the Denali Borough correspondence program to receive $3,000 allotments.

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