Chesapeake lays out requirements for Satan Club
Organizer balks at conditions and refuses to pay $600 fee
The After School Satan Club that sought to meet at a Chesapeake elementary school is considering its options after the school division imposed several security requirements the club must follow to use the building.
According to an email sent to organizers from Chesapeake schools Director of Student Support Services Wayne Martin, the club — sponsored by The Satanic Temple — has to pay more than $600 to cover the cost of four public safety officers at the club’s first meeting. The email says further charges may be necessary if the school division requires officers be present at subsequent meetings for security purposes.
“As you know our Division has been considering this request with such consideration including other student and staff presence, groups already permitted to use this facility at the same time, the public response, and safety and security concerns unique to this and subsequent proposed ASSC meetings,” Martin wrote in the email. “We undertook and have now completed a risk assessment to address these issues.”
The email also stated the proposed meeting time — immediately after school, when students and staff were still in the building — posed a high risk. Martin said the club would have to move to 6 p.m. to “address these security concerns and mitigate potential risk, particularly of conflict with anticipated protesters.”
The school division also required the club to submit a plan regarding how it would monitor who was admitted into the facility, in part to prevent protesters from entering the building. The club also must include the names of the students and their parents who signed up.
The Satanic Temple is a nontheistic religious organization formed about a decade ago. Members say they do not believe in Satan as a real entity, but rather as a literary symbol of standing up to tyrannical authority. Club organizers said their club activities included such things as arts and crafts, puzzles and science projects.
The After School Satan Club originally was launched as a response to the Good News Club, a religious club for kids run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship. The fellowship says its purpose is to “evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Good News Club started at B.M. Williams Primary in the fall.
Rose Bastet, a member of The Satanic Temple and one of the club organizers, said the club refuses to meet the school’s requirements.
“We are not acquiescing to the ‘security requirements’ mandated by Chesapeake Public Schools,” Bastet wrote in a Facebook post. “What they are trying to do is financially burden and scare us in hopes that we will go away.”
Club organizers said they then tried to reserve a room at Indian River Library. According to a series of emails released to The Pilot in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the reservation was approved, then canceled.
The emails show the library branch manager forwarded the request to her supervisor for guidance.
“We’d need to go through CMO for that one due to the issues that previously surrounded it,” Chesapeake Public Libraries Director Amanda Jackson wrote back, referring to the city manager’s office.
But another library employee, unaware of the conversation, approved the request. After multiple emails between library staff and members of the city manager’s office, including Deputy City Manager Wanda Barnard-Bailey, the request was canceled “due to lack of sufficient time for City Manager review” before the scheduled meeting date.
Documents show the After School Satan Club’s national campaign director, June Everett, inquired about the cancellation.
Everett refers to a phone call with Jackson in which she says Jackson said “political or religious” organizations seeking to use library space had to receive approval from the City Manager’s Office. But an email from a library staff member to Jackson notes that the policy the library uses to determine which applications need further approval “only states for political purpose.”
City officials said they withheld from the FOIA response four emails and associated attachments regarding a closed session that are covered by attorney-client privilege.
Bastet said the club held its first meeting at her house as they figure out the next steps.
In her Facebook post, Bastet said her involvement with the club began as a means of activism.
“I have a deep desire to help ensure equality for all and to ensure our institutions uphold our constitutional rights,” she said. But she said after hosting the club at her house, it has become more about community.
“This is no longer just activism for me. This club is fulfilling a need for the silent minority of secular families.”
Meanwhile, the school board has put a temporary moratorium on all building use request applications while the administration reviews the policy. Newly elected board member John McCormick made the motion for the moratorium earlier this month, and every board member supported it.
At a meeting this week, McCormick said the administration expects to make a presentation about the policy at the next board meeting.
“We hope to finalize any changes by the end of February,” McCormick said.
Also at Monday’s meeting, school board member Samuel L. Boone Jr. said he would support suspending all after-school use of the school division’s facilities.
“We’re getting too far from education and spending too much time on this,” he said. “I think we need to find somewhere else for these people to meet after school.”
Boone said he worries about safety and security, and about the “emotional” effect and whether people would want to attend school in a building after it hosts the club. Boone added it was “nothing against them,” but he wouldn’t want the club meeting at his home, either.
News of the club sparked controversy late last year, when a flier began circulating online inviting students to “have fun at After School Satan Club” at Chesapeake’s B.M. Williams Primary. Dozens spoke about the club — most to express opposition — during a three-hour long public comment session at a December school board meeting.