'Bring Your Bible To School Day' Message From Folsom School District Causes Confusion

FOLSOM (CBS13) — A flyer promoting a nationwide "Bring Your Bible To School Day" that was sent to thousands of parents by a local school district raised confusion with parents and students.

Plenty of parents and students thought the Folsom Cordova Unified School District was sponsoring a religious event, even though the fine print said otherwise.

"We've received a few calls from concerned families," said district spokesman Daniel Thigpen.

If you're with the PTA or the parks and recreation department with the city, you can ask the school district to send out an email blast to parents about events going on.

A parent did just that for Bring Your Bible To School Day, and that's where things got confusing.

Thigpen says the district allows most flyers to be emailed to parents through the district account, as long as they don't promote violence or hate. It ran this flyer by lawyers, who said it was allowed.

"By prohibiting this outside group some of that access, that could have been discriminatory," he said.

Teachers won't be involved, but students are free to join in, as long as it doesn't interrupt teaching.

The district says it will take a new look at its policy on what flyers it sends out through its email system to try and avoid confusion in the future.

"We want to make sure that we don't create environments where students don't feel welcome but we also want to make sure our students families and free speech rights are intact," he said.