SAN DIEGO – The Freedom From Religion Foundation is trying to build another wall between government and the citizens it’s supposed to serve.

And the FFRF doesn’t seem to care if its bullying tactics eliminate opportunities for struggling students to gain valuable instruction during the summer.

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The San Diego school district is partnering with several Christian churches to provide summer school opportunities for children who live in targeted neighborhoods.

“Roughly a dozen San Diego churches and community organizations will open their doors to children and volunteer teachers this summer to help close the achievement gap among student groups,” said a recent report from SanDiegoUnionTribune.com.

“The six-week tutoring session will be open to students from kindergarten through high school from 9:30 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, beginning July 9. Free lunch will be provided.

“Retired teachers, administrators and community members will tutor students in math, reading and writing. The sessions will also include character education, with mentoring in self-esteem, teamwork and conflict resolution.”

Bishop George D. McKinney, pastor and founder of one of the participating churches, said he’s eager to help struggling children receive the education they desperately need.

“We are concerned about the low test scores of students of this neighborhood,” McKinney told SanDiegoUnionTribune.com. “We pledge this community partnership with the schools to help our children.”

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Could it possibly be wrong for local churches to partner with an area schools to provide extra mentoring for struggling students from underprivileged neighborhoods?

Is there anything wrong with character education, particularly in neighborhoods that are plagued with drugs, crime and so many other unhealthy influences for children?

The participation of the Christian churches – which play a major role in the social structure of many urban neighborhoods – will allow students to participate in summer school close to home, in environments many of them know and trust.

But the FFRF, which uses the threat of lawsuits to bully schools across the nation to erase all association with the Christian faith, isn’t having it.

“The summer partnership impermissibly advances religion, communicates a message of school endorsement of religion and is marked by the excessive entanglement between the school district and church, FFRF asserts,” the FFRF website said. “It asks that the School District cease all involvement with and promotion of church programs and dissolve any formal summer partnerships with the churches.”

“Tie-ups between public schools and churches should be out of the question,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor was quoted as saying. “Governmental institutions cannot be collaborating with places of worship, especially when it involves a captive audience of young and impressionable children.”

“It is inappropriate and unconstitutional for the district to offer religious leaders unique access to its students, which signals school endorsement of religion,” FFRF lawyer Madeline Ziegler wrote to the school district.

That interpretation is mistaken, according to many legal scholars. The U.S. Constitution bans government from creating or endorsing an official state religion. It says nothing about governmental cooperation with various religions to promote the general welfare of the public.

As the Center for Religious Expression put it, “The Constitution demands the state be neutral – not hostile – toward religion.”