Gilroy’s public school choirs will be allowed to perform in churches this year after all, but come fall 2014, an unpopular decision – backed by more than 1,000 petition votes – to keep student singers out of religious establishments will go back into effect.
The Gilroy Unified School District Board of Education decided during its Oct. 17 regular meeting to suspend the internal administrative decision made in February by Superintendent Debbie Flores, who barred GUSD concerts from being held in churches following anonymous complaints from members of the public over the years.
The decision was based off legal counsel from the district’s attorney, who warned GUSD could be stumbling into a potential “separation of church and state” lawsuit scenario and public schools can only sing in churches if the district does not have adequate facilities for performances.
“I think the school board is kind of putting it off,” commented Raquel Bonino, president and treasurer of the Christopher High School Choir Booster Club and mother of two CHS choir students.
She worries the fight has just been delayed until next year, and expects she will battle all over again for the rights of students to perform in popular locations such as Mission San Juan Bautista, which regularly draws 600 to 700 attendees for its Spring Concert.
The School Board’s recent decision to hold off on the new rule – which elicited impassioned opposition from dozens of community members who wrote letters to the editor and commented up a storm on the Dispatch’s Facebook page – was based on the fact that as of next year, a new district facility will be in place and acoustical upgrades will have been completed at a second facility.
The Student Center will undergo renovations to improve acoustics this summer, as part of phase III renovations to GHS. At that time, GUSD will technically have no need to hold its concerts in local churches such as St. Mary’s Parish, said Board of Education President Jaime Rosso.
“The Board and Superintendent understand the concern about the sound quality in existing facilities and in fact, have allocated Measure P funds to address this concern,” read Rosso after emerging from the closed session portion of the meeting. Board trustee Pat Mitgaard said board members cannot talk about closed session business, including whether a vote was conducted.
The board’s decision to eventually bring the new policy into effect isn’t sitting well with people who penned their names to an online petition launched Oct. 15 by Bonino. As of Wednesday, signatures had swelled to 1,024.
“The school district does not own a single fantastic place to sing,” wrote Kyle Dickerson, who participated in Gilroy High School’s Chamber Choir for three years and signed the petition. “The bathrooms sound pretty good, but are not a place for a concert.”
Bonino and others who have been vocal against the decision aren’t alone in their thinking.
Jonathan Talberg, a professor of choral music at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University of Long Beach, signed Bonino’s petition and also left a comment. Talberg said he has visited many high school auditoriums, gymnasiums, multipurpose rooms and “cafe-toriums” in his line of work, but wrote that few can equal the acoustics of a good church.
“There are some very good auditoriums, but to my knowledge, only one district – Clovis – has a real concert hall that can take the place of a great church for resonance, reverberation and sheer sonic beauty,” he opined.
“The choice to move a concert to an appropriate venue should be the purview of the choir teacher with the approval of his/her principal and their parent support groups,” he continued. “It is utterly ridiculous to have a policy like this at the district level.”
Drawn in by the Dispatch’s online coverage of the debate, Alliance Defending Freedom, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based nonprofit legal organization that seeks to preserve religious freedom, has also joined the fray.
Senior legal counsel Jeremy Tedesco signed a letter dated Oct. 22 and addressed to the GUSD’s Board of Education, demanding the reinstatement of the old policy. He also offered his organization’s legal services if the district is sued because of it.
If the district does not reverse course, Tedesco said there are no plans to seek legal action against GUSD. Instead, he wants to also offer assistance in drawing up a new policy – similar to the old one – that will be “very defensible.”
Tedesco called GUSD’s decision to deny choral performances in churches as “unnecessary hostility” and “quite possibly unconstitutional hostility” toward religion because the “choirs are not performing in the churches for any religious reason.”
“I certainly hope that they suspend it permanently because it’s not necessary,” contended Tedesco, noting that the district has to be careful not to be sending a different message to its students “that there’s something tainted about churches.”
“A handful of misguided complaints and one school official’s misunderstanding of the First Amendment should not be allowed to prevent this great choral program from choosing the best locations for its performances,” said ADF counsel Matthew Sharp in sound bite that accompanied a release on the organization’s website.
ADF, launched in 1994, describes itself as “a servant ministry building an alliance to keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel by transforming the legal system and advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.”
ADF “has provided millions of dollars in funding for hundreds of cases and legal projects to protect religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” Its law team is also challenging higher court rulings involving the abortion pill mandate and same-sex marriage in different states.
Regardless, School Board trustees say they have no intention of suspending the policy any further beyond fall 2014. At that time, student singers can expect to perform in venues such as the Rucker Elementary School multipurpose room, which will be able to accommodate about 500 people when it opens in December, and the GHS Student Center, which seats about 1,000 people.
Flores’ original decision prohibiting choir concerts in churches didn’t catch the public’s attention until months later, when fall concerts generally held at St. Mary’s Parish were held in the CHS cafeteria and the GHS Student Center.
Bonino noticed the difference right away.
“There was standing room only and people sitting on the floor everywhere,” she recalled. “They work so hard all year long and then to have [the concert] in the cafeteria last night where it is very echoey – it just doesn’t sound the same.”
Bonino, whose youngest child attends Rucker Elementary School, says she has seen the new multipurpose room and isn’t particularly impressed.
“It looks just like a multipurpose room with a stage. It’s not anything special and there’s no parking,” said Bonino, who plans to present the petition to the School Board at the Nov. 7 meeting. People are still signing her online petition at a rate of 10 to 20 names a day, she said.
Rosso doesn’t downplay the issue’s complexity.
“I know it’s hard to please everybody,” he said. “I know there’s arguments to be made on both sides here and we’re just trying to stay within the realm of the law. I think that is part of the role we serve on the board – to comply with the law.”
And while some angry parents, choir alumni and community members accuse the board of not caring about GUSD’s choirs, Rosso argues that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“I think that those that know the board, know that the board has been strong supporters of the choral program and take great pride in the program – and we want to support it, as many ways as we can,” he said.
