Both students and teachers join in the bullying of pupils they believed to be non-Christians

Ultra-religious staff and zealous Christian students of Stanton Elementary School in Stanton, Kentucky are caught harassing other students and brutally bullying students who are not Christians or less religious than they are. The Bible championing public school located in rural Kentucky has come into focus after social media outed the supposedly secular education institution for creating a toxic environment. Non-religious students who do not attend the “Upper Room” session of the school are regularly bullied by aggressive Christian students. The session is student-led by what is described as a non-denominational Christian organization.

The horrific school environment came to light after Heather Estes, a mother of two students studying in Stanton Elementary, wrote in a Facebook group that her children were being ostracized as they do not attend the Upper Room. She described the group as what it is: a Christian ministry to be attended before school hours. The problem, she wrote, is not that the children were shunning her two children, but actively bullying them, like slamming tables into theirs and physically abusing them as well.

When Estes' son complained to the teacher and requested to talk to the school principal, the teacher replied that the boy must stand in front of his schoolmates and tell everyone present about his beliefs. The teacher reprimanded the boy by saying he must be stand up for himself if he wants to be separate from everybody else. The teacher allegedly said historians concur that the most historically accurate book in the world is the Bible. Her children were threatened by teachers to become religious or bears will eat them.

My atheist students LOVED having a teacher who understood them. Christian kids were always trying to witness to… https://t.co/UV05dACGGj — Richard Rosario (@Rosario702) November 30, 2017

Michael Tate, the Superintendent of Powell County Schools, said the matter is being investigated by his organization. The problem is even if the perpetrators are punished, there will be no way the toxic atmosphere of the school can be changed. It is altogether another matter that religious extremists have turned a public school into effectively what can be called a church. They can do so as the ministry is supposedly, “student led,” and this makes the practice apparently legal. The toxic level present in the school is increased by teachers harassing and bullying non-Christian students.

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