California school allows Good News Club after threat of legal action

Child Evangelism Fellowship can now host an after-school club at a California elementary school after threatening legal action against the school district over alleged unequal treatment.

Hayward Unified School District in Hayward, California, has agreed to allow a Good News Club to operate as an after-school activity at Park Elementary School, the conservative Christian legal group Liberty Counsel announced on Monday. 

The first meeting took place Thursday. A series of emails between Child Evangelism Fellowship, which operates the Good News Club, and school district officials detailed the previous difficulty securing meeting space at the school.

A CEF leader first contacted the school principal on April 2, explaining the group’s effort to secure space for a weekly Good News Club meeting from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. beginning May 7 and ending May 28 through an automated reservation system.

After CEF submitted a facility-use request on April 2, the principal responded through the automated system on April 13 and asked the group to change its requested meeting time to after 6 p.m. because “rentals are unavailable during the times that the school facilities are being utilized for school sponsored activities.”

The CEF leader disagreed with that explanation, writing: “Per the civic policy act, we are permitted to be on campus directly after school alongside the other after school programs, hence our request to start at 2:30pm and end at 4pm. We have clubs [at] other [Hayward Unified] schools as well. This is an extension of the club we held at Christmas as families were interested in it.”

After failing to make progress with the principal, the CEF leader contacted the district superintendent and reminded him that the group had successfully used litigation to ensure a Good News Club could meet at another school in the district three years earlier.

“We have concluded that any club activity during the afternoon prior to 6 PM would potentially interfere with our afterschool activities, which is an extended part of the school day. Further, it has the potential of creating a security issue,” the superintendent responded.

When CEF pointed out that another group, Girls on the Run, was allowed to meet at the school at 2:45 p.m. during the week, the superintendent clarified that the club was “operated by trained HUSD staff,” adding, “Thus, we don’t have the student safety concerns we would have with outside adults being on campus at the same time as our [school-sponsored extended day activities].”

The CEF leader then sent a letter to the superintendent threatening legal action.

“HUSD is currently allowing Girls on the Run (‘GOTR’), a ‘similarly situated’ nonprofit when compared to CEF, to meet immediately after school at Park Elementary. It matters not that volunteer HUSD teachers lead GOTR. It matters that GOTR is meeting before 6:00 PM,” the letter stated.

“The GNC was supposed to start tomorrow [May 7] at Park Elementary. That is now not possible, due to — Elementary administrative run-around and pretextual excuses. ... The offer to allow CEF to bus or walk Park Elementary students two blocks away to meet at HUSD central office when space is available at Park Elementary (and when GOTR is not required to ‘run to central office first’ in order to meet) is unacceptable,” the letter continued.

Represented by Liberty Counsel, CEF threatened to file a complaint against the school district if officials did not approve the group’s request.

District leaders have since agreed to allow the Good News Club to meet at Park Elementary School beginning May 14. While the letter did not explicitly state how the school district allegedly violated CEF’s rights, it linked to a statement from Liberty Counsel announcing that a federal judge concluded the nearby Oakland Unified School District violated CEF’s rights under the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver welcomed the decision.

“We commend the Hayward Unified School District for ensuring equal access for Child Evangelism [Fellowship’s] after school Good News Clubs,” Staver said. “The First Amendment and the Equal Access Act do not allow for excluding a Christian club in a forum where other non-curricular programs are permitted. Child Evangelism Fellowship gives children a biblically based education that includes moral and character development.”

“Good News Clubs should be in every public elementary school,” he added.