Board of Education Wades Into Battle Between Church, State In Oconee County

Rick Pettigrew has been attending Oconee County Board of Education meetings since last fall with a controversial request to bring Bible classes to public schools.

His proposal would allow students to be released early from class and receive credit for Bible classes. Many other schools around Georgia already do this. Andrew Cohen, a father of two students at Oconee Middle School, describes Pettigrew’s proposal as a ‘costly distraction.’

“But I hope for the sake of keeping church and state separate that they will decline the opportunity to institute this. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing for people to get religious instruction. They can and should go do that as they might like in their places of worship with their religious communities.”

For now, Oconne County children who want to take Bible classes, will have to wait.

Rick Pettigrew by McKenzie Lewis