Queenie Wong

Statesman Journal

A youth mentor from Salem Heights Church was barred from volunteering at Straub Middle School after a student accused him of promoting Christianity and insulting her for being an atheist.

The school's principal, Laura Perez, said that Tim Saffeels, the church's director of student ministries, will not be allowed back as a volunteer for the remainder of the school year.

"I decided that I'm not going to allow him in because to me there was a breach of trust there," Perez said.

Volunteers supervise students during lunch and serve as role models. They make sure students are picking up after themselves, Perez said, but they are not allowed to promote religion because of the separation of church and state.

Saffeels denied the accusations. He said he sat down at a lunch table on Oct. 23 with a student who belonged to the same church when the students started asking him about religion.

"I wasn't in any way trying to force any of those things," Saffeels said. "They actually did literally ask me 'Who is Jesus?' "

But some Straub students said Saffeels was making them feel uncomfortable.

"He said imagine this scenario. All of us are in a van and we're driving somewhere and we get hit by two drunk drivers and we all die. What happens next?" said eighth-grader Sarina Keightley.

Eighth-grader Shelby Conway wrote an email to the principal asking that the volunteer not return.

In the email, she said that Saffeels asked students for their religious beliefs and then insulted her after she revealed that she was atheist.

She wrote in the letter that the volunteer told her that atheism is "wrong," "bad," "stupid" and "evil."

"I was very uncomfortable and personally offended with the way he was speaking to both me and other non-Christians around the lunch room," Conway wrote. "I request that we keep things like this, such as pastors and religious speeches, in places where they are welcomed, such as churches or religious schools."

Saffeels denied saying those comments about atheism to the student.

"None of those things came out of my mouth. I didn't say any of those things," he said.

Saffeels said there was another student who would support his account of what happened during lunch and provided the Statesman Journal with the student's contact information. Contacted Thursday, the student's parent declined to speak on the record.

The Salem-Keizer School District has a policy that outlines how school visitors should behave during instructional hours, which includes lunch.

"Promotion or inhibition of religion in any form by such visitor is prohibited," the policy states.

Visitors are also not allowed to invite students to meetings or events sponsored by any ministry during school hours.

Saffeels said he volunteers at schools to build relationships with students, not to promote Christianity. He doesn't think he violated school policy because he wasn't the one who brought up religion.

"Since they instigated that, they're asking my personal opinion," he said.

Salem-Keizer School District officials disagreed, though district policy doesn't explicitly outline how visitors should respond to religious questions.

"If the student had questions about a topic that isn't appropriate for a volunteer to talk to kids about, the expectation would be that they would refer to them to somebody who could talk to them about the topic like their parent or their own church officials," said Mary Paulson, the district's chief of staff.

Perez said she would revisit whether to allow Saffeels back into Straub Middle School after the end of the school year.

But some parents say allowing religious officials into public schools is not worth the risk.

"I think reaching out to churches is a little problematic especially given the way this turned out. There's just too much of a chance for someone to do something that is offensive," said parent Summer Keightley.

Perez said that she appreciates volunteers at the schools and the time they commit. This is the first time she's faced this problem.

"I want to make sure that we're doing what we can to make sure that it doesn't happen again," she said.

qwong@statesmanjournal.com, (503) 399-6694 or follow at Twitter.com/QWongSJ

Document:Shelby Conway's email to principal