Mother rails against religion in schools

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This was published 11 years ago

Mother rails against religion in schools

By Bridie Jabour

A Queensland mother has accused the state's education department of discrimination, claiming children who opt out of religious instruction classes are left disadvantaged.

Tricia Moore, who has filed an anti-discrimination complaint, said she was contemplating taking the Department of Education, Training and Employment to the state's civil tribunal.

Tricia Moore with her children Luca Tirocchi, 9, Ayla Tirocchi, 7 and Maya Tirocchi, 5.

Tricia Moore with her children Luca Tirocchi, 9, Ayla Tirocchi, 7 and Maya Tirocchi, 5.

She said the department had failed to provide a proper alternative for children who opted out of religious instruction, with students instead left to sit in corridors or carry out meaningless work.

Ms Moore filed the complaint with the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland in November after, she said, the principal and P&C of her children's school did not listen to her concerns.

The department fought the complaint and denied it was discriminating against students when Ms Moore attended a conciliation meeting in May.

Ms Moore has now been advised she has until the end of this month to decide if she wants to take the matter to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal and she has recruited four more parents from different schools who are interested in joining her.

"While I think this is a fantastic opportunity I'm, well, scared is probably slightly too strong of a word, but I am," she said.

"I am afraid and concerned about proceeding to QCAT as one parent talking about one school and two kids about an issue that affects, well according to the last census, one out of four kids possibly.

"It's really daunting, I wouldn't have any access to an legal representation whatsoever except for some legal coaching and based on the experience I had in the conciliation meeting, the department will come down on this like a ton of bricks and really want to kill it."

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At the beginning of last year, the mother-of-three pulled her now nine-year-old son Luca Tirocchi out of religious instruction classes after he saw "horrific" documentary style images of Jesus Christ's crucifixion in the class and started a six-month campaign of "obsessive and incessant" questions about it.

Luca's younger sister, Ayla, also did not attend religious instruction classes.

When Ms Moore started making inquiries about what Luca was doing during the religious instruction time, she discovered he had sat in the corridor or wasted time doing remedial work. Ms Moore did not want her son's Brisbane school named, as she said her issue was with the policy of the education department and not the school, which she described as fantastic.

"It [the filing of the anti-discrimination complaint] was really in a moment of frustration I guess, but also a genuine belief that it was a completely fair thing to do; it wasn't a vexatious thing to do to file the anti-discrimination complaint," she said.

"I believe the Department of Education and Training is discriminating against my kids when they opt out of religious education classes.

"I don't believe the school is at all consciously discriminating against my kids.

"Essentially what's happening is the policy doesn't empower or give enough specificity or clarity to principals to do something different with kids when they opt out, so you get a whole variety of things happening such as sitting in the corridor unsupervised to doing remedial work and stuff that is really not at all instructive or respectful to kids."

Ms Moore said she did not want the kids to be doing core curriculum activities that could disadvantage children who opted into religious instruction classes and would be happy with organised sports or a type of school community project for them to take part in.

"In the long term what I think would be absolutely amazing for every kid at a Queensland school would be comparative religious education delivered by the department and not by volunteers who come in with all their unconscious bias," she said.

"It's impossible to leave their baggage at the school gates."

Ms Moore said she allowed Luca to take part in the religious instruction classes initially because she did not want him separated from his friends and in a "minority group".

In May, she had a conciliation meeting with the department but both parties walked away from it with their issues unresolved.

She was then told she could proceed to QCAT and had until the end of this month to decide.

Religious instruction classes are run in state schools by volunteers from approved denominations and faith groups for up to one hour each week.

Ms Moore said the school had told her she should not be worried about such a small amount of time each week.

"However, this is stuff about morals, values, human origin and spirituality, so when it comes to how my kids can be impacted in this area, every second counts for me," she said.

"Also, if the same argument was transposed to the workplace, it might be like saying, it's not OK to be sexist except three days a year, which is obviously not OK at all."

Education Queensland assistant director-general Marg Pethiyagoda said schools did offer alternative instructional activities for students who did not take part in religious classes.

"Students withdrawn from religious instruction must receive other instruction in a separate location during the period arranged for religious instruction," she said.

"The other instruction or alternative activity must relate to part of a subject area that has already been covered in class and may include, but is not limited to, wider reading, personal research or revision of work."

In 2010 New South Wales introduced state-wide ethics classes as an alternative to religious classes in state schools, but the idea was rejected by both the LNP and the then-ALP government last year. The LNP's then education spokesman, Bruce Flegg, said the LNP believed "the overwhelming majority of Queenslanders want their children brought up with a Judeo-Christian grounding in religious education".

Ms Pethiyagoda said there had been no official move to explore ethics-type alternative classes in Queensland.

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