The Craig County School Board is facing yet another challenge in what has been a tumultuous spring.

After spending two months in the process of firing its superintendent and facing an investigation of finances by the federal Department of Education, now the board is being questioned about its approval of a religion course for high school students.

The Virginia affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union has asked for more information about a Bible curriculum approved during a May 6 board meeting.

The ACLU believes the class is similar to one it successfully challenged in Texas last year.

The board approved the Bible course with four affirmative votes and one abstention.

Potts Creek board member Dawna McDowell objected that the course "content is different than what we hoped for," according to an article earlier this month in the New Castle Record.

"If we're going to institute a course, we need to be very careful not to cross the line, and I mean very careful," McDowell said, according to the newspaper. Attempts to reach McDowell on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The ACLU of Virginia is raising the same flags with a Freedom of Information Act request to the school board.

"For now, this is merely an inquiry," Kent Willis, its executive director, said Wednesday.

The curriculum appears to be one provided by a North Carolina-based group called the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, he said. "That particular course is one that we are very familiar with and that we believe is unconstitutional."

Wills said he's concerned that the course "may not be an impartial study of the Bible, but an attempt to advocate for one set of religious beliefs to the exclusion of others in a public school. And that violates our most fundamental notions of religious liberty and equality."

Willis said the national ACLU successfully fought the implementation of that curriculum in Texas last year, resulting in a settlement in which the school district switched to another religion course the ACLU agrees is constitutionally acceptable.

"One of the reasons for getting involved early" in challenging the Craig County decision, Willis said, "is to have a conversation about the problems with this course . . . There is room to accomplish what the schools would like to accomplish, to teach a course in Bible, but to do it constitutionally."

School board Chairman James Stephens disputed the timeliness of the ACLU's action. "They're three years after the fact" in challenging the class, he said Wednesday.

"The school board approved this in 2005," he said, though the class later was dropped because of a lack of interest.

So why bring it back up?

"Because a faculty member and seven students appeared and said they were interested in reinstituting the program," Stephens said. Acting Superintendent Ron Gordon "took the responsible and reasonable approach to take that request to the school board again to make sure there was community interest and board approval," Stephens said.

Gordon noted that the board's action earlier this month "approved the class for the fall of 2008. No class has been taught and there's been no preparation at this point in time."

Both Stephens and Gordon said Wednesday they believe the curriculum will withstand legal scrutiny, although Stephens said it was prudent to ask the school board's lawyer, Jeremy Carroll, to review it to make sure.

Willis said he doesn't have any doubts about the inappropriateness of the national council curriculum. The group's Web site touts the course "with words like, 'the first step to get God back in your public school,' " Willis said.

On the other hand, the Web site also includes a copy of a teacher's guide that has information about U.S. Department of Education guidelines on teaching religion in public schools, and advises that, "No public school teacher or official should ever endorse, favor, promote, or disfavor or show hostility to, any particular religion or nonreligious faith.

Willis, who was waiting for confirmation of the curriculum content Wednesday, said that the ACLU is also interested "in hearing from parents who have, or will have, children at Craig County High School. It's important that we collect all the information we can."

"Schools just need to tread very carefully on teaching about religion in school," Willis said. "It's very easy to cross over the line from teaching about religion to teaching dogma."

For his part, Stephens said he doesn't have any fears about that. Jeanne Guthrie has volunteered to teach the Craig County course. She is a "20-year veteran, properly licensed, one of our most praised and most valued faculty members," Stephens said.

"She has the good judgment to make sure she does not get into proselytizing and keep it in an academic format," Stephens said.

He acknowledged, however, that for the financially struggling school system, the potential fiscal challenge of defending the program in court is a concern.

Just this week, Stephens and a majority of his fellow board members voted to deny paying a $10 registration fee for a school nurse to attend a conference because the budget is so tight. Stephens said he later told Gordon he would pay that fee out of his own pocket, however, so the nurse can attend.

"At this point in time, it [the financial impact] is a nominal concern," he said, but other school systems have given up on similar Bible programs when "continual litigation and the continual expenses to defend their constitutionality become more of a burden than they can bear."

"It's a backhanded way for the ACLU to deny some folks their constitutional rights" to have such classes, he contended.