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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A woman in Tennessee took her concerns to school after her 10-year-old daughter was not allowed to write about God for an assignment.
WREG.com reports Erica Shead's daughter Erin received an assignment to write about an idol, and she chose God.
Erica Shead called her daughter's report "cute and innocent." "She talked about how God created the earth and how she's doing the best she can," Shead told WREG.
The report also said, "God is my idol, I will never hate him. He will always be the number one person I look up to," according to the Christian Post.
Shead said the teacher told Erin to pick another idol to write about and told her to remove the paper from school property. Erin then chose to write about Michael Jackson, which was acceptable, the Post reported.
Shead said she was angry and approached the school principal to ask why her daughter couldn't write about God. The Shelby County School District responded, calling the incident a "regrettable misunderstanding."
A statement from the district to WREG acknowledged, "No laws or district policies allow teachers to limit students' expression of religious beliefs in their personal classwork."
The Post pointed out that the Alliance Defending Freedom states on its website, "Students have more freedom to express their faith on campus than you, or they, realize."
