Montgomery Blair High School seniors will now be able to celebrate the end of their secondary school careers at the Jericho City of Praise church.
Offering at least a temporary resolution to a clash that’s been ongoing for years, the county’s Board of Education members voted late Thursday night to reverse Superintendent Jerry Weast’s denial of a request to use the religious site as a graduation venue for the county’s largest public high school.
Their decision has been met by mostly joy from parents who are pleased, they said, that the site will allow for many more family members and friends to watch their loved ones graduate.
“I was at a meeting at the school where registration for next year was going on [when I heard the news],” said David Ottalini, co-president of Blair’s PTSA. “So I got up and made an announcement … the place erupted in cheers. Everyone — even if they weren’t seniors — seemed to understand the import of it.”
The argument in favor of using the church has been that Jericho accommodates thousands more spectators than other venues, which is critical at a time when graduation class sizes are growing.
Meanwhile, the case made against utilizing the church — and employed by Weast and others in their denials — has been that the religious nature of the locale violates the separation of church and state.
Ottalini said the PTSA’s response to this charge is that lawyers have never found the situation to be actionable. On top of that, he noted that the motivation of using a larger facility, even if it does normally serve as a religious destination, is to be more inclusive, not less.
“We’ve pointed out that schools are all used by religious agencies, and students go to churches to take AP tests. Religion is a part of our lives no matter what,” he said, explaining that Jericho just happens to be a church. “The only reason we even found it was because another venue double-booked us and we were on the outs. So, parents looked for something else, and Jericho was the answer.”
