The city of Indianapolis is set to become the first in the country with public charter schools run by the Catholic Church. The schools are making changes to be constitutional, but church-state watchdogs are still rightfully wary:
At St. Anthony, that means removing the crucifixes and statues of saints found in every classroom and office, along with the Bibles on display tables in hallways and saint statues in stairwells.The board will have to get creative at St. Andrew & St. Rita, where two large limestone crosses are part of the outside wall of the building, said Connie Zittnan, director of the Mother Theodore Catholic Academies, which currently runs the city's six urban Catholic schools.
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The schools will use a secular adaptation of the state-approved character education curriculum already used in the city's urban Catholic schools, according to the charter application.All staff will be trained in curriculum changes, as well as changes that come as the school becomes public…
