Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosThe teddy bears given out at a Bend High awards ceremony had tags that read in part, “By believing in Jesus, you can spend forever in Heaven.” Bend High officials say it was a mistake. But students like Liz Mastrangelo felt it was a mistake that should have been caught. “I just think people need to be more aware,” she said.
Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
Student awards tagged with religion
Bend High officials admit their mistake
By Sheila G. Miller / The Bulletin
Published: March 22. 2008 4:00AM PSTIt started out as a traditional gift to high-achieving students. It ended up a religious message.
About 20 Bend High School students were honored for their academic achievement with cuddly teddy bears at an assembly Thursday. But the donated stuffed animals bore tags with overt Christian messages about sin and forgiveness. Administrators say it was a mistake, but at least one student and parent think, mistake or not, religious overtones shouldn’t be a part of public schools.
The folded tag on the bear’s right ear says, “A Special Gift of God’s Love,” with a prayer and a note about accepting Jesus Christ in order to go to heaven.
“Dear Jesus,” it reads in part. “I know I have done wrong things that have made Your heart sad. Thank You for paying the price for my mistakes with Your Life. I want to accept Your gift of forgiveness.”
The other tag has a Bible verse, James 1:27, that asks the religious to look after widows and orphans. The tags call the stuffed toys “Barnabas Bear” and says proceeds from their sales go to the James Fund, a Christian nonprofit.
Mark Neffendorf, Bend High’s principal, said it was a mistake.
“Our intent (Thursday) was to award and reward students in an academic assembly,” he said. “There was no message to the assembly. There was no Christian message behind it.”
The bears were given out during an assembly to reward students for various academic successes. Neffendorf said there were at least four categories and about five students received each of the awards, and estimated that a total of 20 stuffed bears were given out. The awards ranged from “most organized” to “most inquisitive.”
‘I want to assume the best’
Liz Mastrangelo, 16, was one of the Bend High students who received a teddy bear. The junior was awarded an “inquisitive award,” and said she looked at the tag and was surprised to see its message.
“It looked like it was part of a charity and that it was tax deductible, so I thought maybe they bought it in order to support the organization, and I just kind assumed they’d forgotten to take the other tags off,” she said. “I want to assume the best about it.”
Still, she doesn’t think it’s a message that should be in a public school. After all, she said, students who want to hand out Bibles must do so off campus, and the on-campus Bible study group can’t push people to join.
“There’s a place to learn about religion in school,” said Mastrangelo, who writes a regular column for The Bulletin. “They always say school should be a safe place, that we can’t have drugs at school or violence at school, we can’t say hurtful stuff to people. If I wasn’t a Christian, I wouldn’t feel very safe if people were having that type of Christian presence (at school). It would kind of offend me, and it might make me not want to come to school.”
When Joni Anderson, whose daughter Casey received an award, heard the text of the Christian message, she was speechless.
“In our community, there’s not very much diversity,” Anderson said. “I think that a lot of times comments are made with, I think, the understanding that everybody has the same faith and same beliefs.”
That’s not the case for Anderson, whose mother attends Jewish temple on Fridays and who has raised her children as Christians after spending part of her youth exploring the Hindu religion.
“That’s an interesting choice of a bear to be given out at a school,” she said. “If they would have had that prayer along with a Muslim prayer and a Jewish prayer and all sorts of other prayers, I still probably would have been surprised that they’d do that at school.”
Neffendorf said he didn’t give out the teddy bears at the assembly, but that they were in a big box and teachers grabbed a handful of them for the assembly. In the past, bears have been given out as part of the Teddy Awards for students’ academic success.
“We don’t go purchase bears that have a Christian message,” Neffendorf said.
‘The intention was to honor the kids’
According to H.D. Weddell, an assistant principal at the school, the bears came from The Salvation Army, a Christian nonprofit. The Salvation Army donated about 90 bears to the school, and the tags were not removed.
Weddell said administrators weren’t sure if they all had the tags on them.
“The intent was never to give out that message,” Weddell said. “The intention was to honor kids.
“This is not a violation (of the separation of church and state). This is a mistake.”
District Superintendent Doug Nelson said he believed it was a mistake, but he was concerned about it.
“That’s pretty religious,” he said of the bear’s tag. “It’s not something the school would normally be doing, but it’s one of those things that happened … there was an oversight. I’d chalk it up to experience and make sure you double-check it in the future.”
He said administrators removed the tags from the remaining bears after being contacted by The Bulletin on Friday.
“It wasn’t the intent of the school to present a religious message,” Nelson said. “It’s unfortunate where (the bears) came from in this case.”
The school district has a specific policy dealing with religion in schools. It states in part that “the distribution of Scriptures or portions thereof to students on school property cannot legally be permitted.”
While school board member Carolyn Platt said it sounded like a mistake, she was still concerned.
“It’s unfortunate, because I feel very strongly (about) the separation between public schools and religion,” she said.
Board member Tom Wilson agreed and said it sounded like something that could have been prevented.
“I think there’s got to be a procedure for doing that,” he said of the donations. “No matter what the gift is, we’ve got to look at it. That they don’t look at the tag is bothersome. I don’t know. I will look into it.”
Mastrangelo thinks the school should be more vigilant about the messages it’s handing out.
“I’m a Christian. I go to church, and some of the things on that tag I believe in,” she said. “But I know if I wasn’t a Christian, if I didn’t feel that way, I would be pretty offended that that was handed out at school. I just think people need to be more aware, and it’s a thing that should have been caught.”
Sheila G. Miller can be reached at 617-7831 or at smiller@bendbulletin.com.
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