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Best way to deal with religious bullying in public school?

Since we moved to Texas 4 months ago, my second grade son has been complaining increasingly of being bullied for not being Christian. He's been told that he and his family are going to hell (soon, according to one girl, since god will be destroying the Earth very soon), has been tattle on twice for admitting that he doesn't believe in god, has had other students verbally gang up on him several times, etc. My third grade daughter tells me that she experiences harassment, too, and therefore has started lying to people and pretending to be Christian to avoid the meanness. I just wrote emails to both teachers asking that they discuss religious tolerance with their classes. What else could/should I do, or is that all I can do realistically?

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Permalink Reply by Iva Viddal on February 2, 2011 at 1:11pm

You saw that happen?? That's...awful!!!

Permalink Reply by Cindy on February 2, 2011 at 2:13pm

ewwe, sorry that should have been bred not bread. Mind must have been on the lunch I missed.

Permalink Reply by Cindy on February 2, 2011 at 2:43pm

Iva Viddal - There is no way to reply directly to your post. No button.

Anyways, we just missed the accident. The cops had the road blocked off so we had to take another road. We asked what happened when we got there and that was when we got that disgusting reply.

They said this in front of our kids. The sad part was we found out who the kid was that died the next day, it was one of my 10 year olds best friends from school. She was very sweet child.

It was his first experience losing a friend or someone close and to me it was sickening that he had to hear these words said about his friend who died.

Permalink Reply by Atheist in FundyLand on February 6, 2011 at 10:30pm

I live in a very religious part of California, which could quite easily be transplanted into the bible belt and not notice a thing. :)

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Permalink Reply by Iva Viddal on February 7, 2011 at 8:44pm

Where in CA? I'm from San Diego, where we had zero issues. I'll have to add your home to another place to avoid! :) Or I guess I could just check your profile, lol...

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Permalink Reply by Atheist in FundyLand on February 8, 2011 at 3:26am

I live in a small, rural town in the Sierra Nevada foothills. A friend of mine once described the foothills as the "Bible Belt of California." My friend from San Jose experienced culture shock and she only lives a few hours away.

I wouldn't worry about ending up here. There are no jobs.

(I'd like to move, but I can't.)

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Permalink Reply by damian on January 31, 2011 at 2:12pm

I'm happy to hear that the teachers did their part. I wonder if it was because of fear of a lawsuit, etc. or did they genuinely feel it was the right thing to do? Would it be out of line to thank them in some way? A box of candy, a note sent by your child, or an e-mail? Alot of southern teachers feel that non-xtians are trouble makers, and i'd just feel compelled to let them know where i'm coming from. It might change the way they think about things/people. Teachers influence alot of people and this could snowball into a positive thing. That's my hope :/

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Permalink Reply by Iva Viddal on February 2, 2011 at 12:06pm

Yes, I did send emails to each teacher thanking her profusely. I think that one of the teachers was definitely quite genuine in her concern. The other, I'm not so sure.... She said that she was going to do a lesson on differences and have the guidance councelor do one, too, and she said that she'd be in touch. Judging from what I can glean from my son, it doesn't sound like she's done more than read a picture book to them yet and she hasn't been in touch. I think it's time for me to contact her again, actually. I'll make sure to be nice about it, though, because she certainly made it sound like she cared in the email I got from her originally. And you're right; teachers have a lot of influence, so if they can see where I'm coming from and I can gain their support it will be ideal all around.