Earlier this year Springboro Ohio School Board members Jim Rigano and Kelly Kohls proposed controversial school policy changes that would intentionally introduce religion into the city’s classrooms. Despite heavy push-back from the community and educators, as well as external groups like the ACLU, School Board members are planning to push forward with their agenda with the legal assistance of a far-right Christian group out of Texas.

In early April, Rigano distributed proposed changes to Springboro School Board Policy 8800 (Patriotic Observances) and Policy 2240 (Controversial Issues). The full text of the changes can be seen here: 8800, 2240.

Rigano’s changes to 8800 would force Springboro schools to teach courses on the US Constitution using instruction materials provided by specified right-wing, religiously-affiliated groups like the Institute on the Constitution. It wouldcreating the false birth records could then go to Office of Vital Statistics to receive a birth certificate . . . As part of the investigation, federal agents executed a search warrant of the HCOVS on Feb. 18, 2004, which resulted in the seizure of hundreds of suspect Certificates of Live Birth which falsely indicated that the named individuals were born in Jersey City, when in fact, they were born outside the United States and were in the United States illegally . . . Bhutta purchased from Goswamy false birth certificates for himself and his three foreign-born children.

Even before 9/11, government officials acknowledged the “ease” of obtaining birth certificates fraudulently. From 1999 testimony by one Social Security Administration official:

Furthermore, the identity data contained in Social Security records are