Christians On Equal Footing for Employment at Ferndale Schools

Christians, go ahead and apply for employment with Ferndale Public Schools. A clause giving employment preference to people “of the non-Christian faith” has been stricken.

Teachers at Ferndale Public Schools don’t have to be non-Christians – a standard that has existed, at least informally, since the 1970s.

Ferndale Public Schools, backed by the teachers union acted quickly to strike the clause when contacted earlier this week by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan nonpartisan research and educational institute, the Detroit Free Press reports.

The clause in question gave  employment preference to people “of the non-Christian faith.”

Ferndale Public Schools spokeswoman Shelley Rose said the language apparently made it into an earlier contract in the 1970s for reasons she can’t explain. The language was stricken in the contract recently negotiated with the Ferndale Education Association, Rose said.

State Rep Tim Kelly, a Saginaw Township Republican, said he’s glad the language has been stricken, but he has asked the state Board of Education to investigate why it was there in the first place.