I'm with the French on this one. Schools and religion should not be mixed ( except as a subject for academic study ). In England cubs and brownies do not meet in schools but in church or community halls. Can you imagine a christian evangelical group being happy about sharing school premises with a pagan group? Or even, in some cases, a jewish group? Kids have enough to contend with while they are growing up, why lump this onto them?

I may be quite wrong about this, but I get the picture that outside groups can have a large influence on what goes on in school in the states, whereas in england it is quite hard for this to occur. All schools need money, but unfortunately this can be used as a lever to serve a minority's purpose.

I'm not against religious groups bringing their message to the young. I'm a pagan and for about three years ( from when I was about seven ) I attended a "friday night club" at the church at the end of my street. My parents are catholic and the church was protestant, but as far as they were concerned the people who ran it were good people. We played games, made stuff, did some cooking and at then end of the evening we had a teaching sermon and sang some hymns. But this was Church of England type christianty, gentle and encouraging and non- judgmental ( even the hindu kids from the bottom end of my street came) , we were not there to be "saved" or harried or worried about commiting sin.

Unfortunately, how do you make sure that that is how ALL the groups that take up this privilage of being able to use scholl premises, treat it this way? I worry that this may give children another reason to be afraid of going to school.

TTFN M'Lady P.