The case that could breach the wall between church and state

So much of Amy Carson’s life in rural Maine has centered around the small Evangelical school she attended nearly 30 years ago. 

She met her husband, David, there when she was in eighth grade, and both of them had siblings there as well. Some family members used to teach at the conservative Christian school, and their daughter Olivia, a recent graduate, attended from kindergarten through high school.

“It’s a small school, it’s college prep education, it’s close-knit, so everybody knows everybody,” says Ms. Carson, who lives with her family in Glenburn, Maine, a town of about 4,500 residents in a district that doesn’t have a public high school. She says it’s always been important for her family to be part of a community that instills the beliefs and biblical worldview they share at home.

Like the Carsons, the families of nearly 5,000 of Maine’s 180,000 students live in school districts in which the state does