A recent report by blogger Hemant Mehta at the Friendly Atheist revealed that students in Oregon are allowed to skip fundamental classes at school if they wish to attend a biblical indoctrination program promoted by the state. The program is titled PREP4Kids and it offers a shuttle to transfer students from Banks Elementary School to Banks Community United Methodist Church where students learn “about god and how he made the world.”

The program claims to be non-denominational and it preaches the Christian Bible to students in four-year cycles. Volunteer Tia Adams has taught students since 2007 and does not require to be licensed by the state to do so.

“I just love teaching kids about the gospel,” she said.

As found out by OregonLive, the PREP4Kids operates under a law that is a few decades old and allows students to leave school in order to attend religious classes as long as they have the approval of their parents.

On March 4, Adams required her students to tell her what the word “catastrophe” meant and she planned on teaching them the concept of sin so she could narrate to them the Biblical story of Noah’s ark. Adams told her students about the different animals that went aboard Noah’s ark and she included dinosaurs in the list as well. Her class ended with a recitation of the Ten Commandments followed by singing in the church’s chapel.

According to Bob Huston, superintendent at Banks School District, the problem with the PREP4Kids program is that it seeks to take out students from the classroom and this can have a significantly deleterious impact on them in comparison to their classmates.

“It’s just clumsy to try and make that work. When you take students out of school for one hour a week, that’s significant,” said Huston.