PARENT SAYS AGREEMENT REACHED IN SCHOOL ASSEMBLIES DISPUTE

In a flap over the constitutional separation of church and state in far
southern Illinois, a tentative agreement was reached Saturday in the
dispute over a Texas preacher's plans to give secular school assemblies in
Marion.

Robert Marsh, a parent who challenged the assemblies in court, declined to
specify the agreement's details until it's signed on Monday.

"Both sides are at a place of agreement on the wording of a court order
that safeguards the constitutional issues that were present in this
situation," Marsh told The Associated Press Saturday.

Neither school district officials nor Hill immediately returned telephone
calls Saturday seeking comment.

The Rev. Ronnie Hill planned anti-drug assemblies for Monday and Tuesday.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based evangelist also is in town for a nightly church
revival at Cornerstone Community Church.

Marsh, the father of a fourth-grader in Marion schools, asked the U.S.
District Court in Benton on Friday to issue a temporary restraining order
canceling the four assemblies in grades five through 12 because he claims
they improperly put God in the classroom.

Both sides are planning to appear Monday morning before U.S. District Judge
James Foreman to sign the agreement, which will have the same effect as a
court order, Marsh said.

Marsh has claimed the assemblies are part of a plan to get students to
attend the nightly prayer crusade at the church, but school officials have
said the programs are acceptable because Hill promises not to mention God.

The battle in this prison town of 15,000 has pitted neighbor against
neighbor, although Marion has a history of having a fine line between
church and state. The local public schools regularly pass out flyers with
students' homework advertising Christian youth groups and high school
students pray around the school's flag pole some mornings.

Hill's ministry documents encourage churches that hire him to organize the
secular assemblies to help boost attendance at the crusades he leads. Hill
said he has done the assemblies at hundreds of schools nationwide without a
court challenge and that his programs aren't connected to the church revival.