A student’s request to move Impact club meetings from after school to during students’ lunch period is an easy decision clouded mainly by the religious nature of the Impact fellowship.

The religious nature of Impact raises questions for some about separation of church and state, but the decision to move Impact’s meeting time has nothing to do with religious accommodation – a topic on which many think they are experts but know precious little about decades of accumulated case law that actually govern how religious organizations and places funded with public money coexist.

The easy reason to keep the status quo is this – if the district allows Impact to meet at lunch time, it has to consider allowing other groups to meet during students’ lunch periods too. Having outside groups and clubs meeting during school hours, inside the school building, ends up bringing more traffic into schools during the day and creating the same type of scheduling conflicts that happen now. It just moves the problem from after school to during school.

The part of the argument that clouds the issue is Impact’s religious purpose. Allowing Impact to meet during school hours means other groups centered on religion – or a lack of religion – could make a legitimate argument they should receive the same accommodation being requested for Impact.

In this case, in our opinion, the best thing for the Jamestown Public Schools District is to ensure groups are handled the same way regardless of the group’s purpose.