Published Saturday, July 6, 2002
Herald Staff Writer
A Masury woman is suing the Brookfield School District for $1.5 million, claiming her middle school son was denied the right to write an essay about Jesus.
Peggy E. Koehler, of 710 Hazelton St., Masury, also wants the Brookfield School District to declare that Jesus is a person about whom her 14-year-old son Phillip M. Vaccaro could write about.
The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court, Youngstown.
According to the suit, a Brookfield teacher instructed her middle-school language arts class to write an essay regarding the most important person who influenced their lives. When the teacher approached Vaccaro, he told her he was going to write about Jesus, and the teacher abruptly cautioned him in front of the class that Jesus was not a real person and told him to pick another topic, the suit states.
The incident happened before school let out for the summer.
The suit describes Vaccaro as an "educationally challenged youth" who holds a strong faith in Christianity, both as a way of life and as a way to deal with daily struggles in school.
According to the suit, Vaccaro came home from school spiritually and emotionally devastated after the incident, and couldn't understand why the teacher would say Jesus wasn't a person. He also faced emotional difficulties, missed days of school and sought continued medical attention for depression and other medical issues, it states.
Ms. Koehler and her lawyer, Mark S. Colucci, Youngstown, sent a letter to the school shortly after the incident asking the school to recant or remedy what had happened and objected to the principal backing the teacher. Colucci said when he and Ms. Koehler tried to arrange a talk with the principal, there was never a response.
The suit states that policy makers "refused to assist the parents and child, or even slightly modify their position" and at a meeting with the school principal to discuss the matter, the principal verbally assaulted Ms. Koehler and used profanity, which "sent her fleeing out the door."
Colucci, who described the boy as a born-again Christian, said the school asked Vaccaro to sign a paper saying he wouldn't talk about Jesus and warned Ms. Koehler that if her son didn't sign the paper he wasn't allowed to come back to school, and if he didn't come back, his mother would be arrested for keeping him out.
The suit states that as a result of what happened, Ms. Koehler "suffered the absence" of her son's "companionship, society and love."
Colucci said the Brookfield School District "didn't have a prayer" of prevailing in this suit because Vaccaro's First Amendment rights to free speech, expression and freedom of religion, among other things, were violated by the teacher and the school system's actions.
Brookfield school officials could not be reached for comment.
Colucci said the recent San Francisco court ruling on the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance had nothing to do with filing this suit. He said the Brookfield incident ironically happened before the Pledge ruling, but the suit wasn't filed until after.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, Akron.