Initiative would add ministers

A fledgling Clovis Municipal Schools initiative bridges schools and the church.

The Chaplaincy Program will link school employees, students and families with chaplains, or church ministers. It should be ready for implementation by August.

In a crisis such as the death of a family member or a house fire, school employees, students and families are currently given a list of resources. Contact names and numbers for organizations such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are included.

Once the Chaplaincy Program is in place, the names of church ministers will also be included, according to CMS Director of Student Services Cindy Martin.

For four years, the program has been on the drawing board, she said, first dreamed up as part of the district’s 2002 strategic plan. The school district initiatives are sketched annually by a group of administrators and parents.

School and church officials agree the Chaplaincy Program is needed.

“It will add to the services we can provide a family or an employee in a time of need. It gives them another choice, another option. And it is completely voluntary,” Martin said.

School administrators, she said, will not offer links to chaplains unless requested to do so by an individual in need of help. Martin said the 12 chaplains who have agreed to participate in the program ascribe to a variety of faiths.

The program was drafted carefully to avoid evangelistic appeals and theological innuendoes, according to a program pamphlet.

“We are not going to go blazing our Gospel guns,” said chaplain “ROCrageous” Dan Borwick, who acquired his nickname during ministry sessions he presented to children.

“Church,” he said, “can be a vital tool that schools can use. We are not doing this to propagate our own churches and beliefs. But we all live in the same community, we deal with the same issues, and we can offer support and love where we are needed.”

But the program treads on extremely sensitive ground, according to Peter Simonson, executive director of the New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“If the program has an entirely secular purpose, then the program would pass Constitutional muster,” Simonson said.

However, he said, “if the chaplains are in any way promoting churchgoing or if they are themselves giving religious services, then they are violating the First Amendment,” which protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference.

Furthermore, Simonson said, “If the school is favoring churchgoing and putting special resources into facilitating student access to churches, and not providing some facilitation for other nonreligious services, then they are sending the signal that religion is more important than other services, and they are also in violation of the First Amendment.”

School administrator Martin contends the program will do neither.

“We are not proselytizing. And we are not teaching religion. We are just offering a service upon request,” she said.