http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1163573821277990.xml&coll=3

'YOU BELONG IN HELL'
Kearny High preacher teacher uses classroom to condemn non-Christians
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

KEARNY - A Kearny High School student has accused a history teacher of crossing the line between teaching and preaching - and he's got the tapes to prove it.

Sixteen-year-old junior Matthew LaClair says he was shocked when history teacher David Paszkiewicz, who is also a Baptist preacher in town, spent the first week lecturing students more about Heaven and Hell than the colonies and Constitution.

"I would never have suspected something like this went on in a public school," LaClair said yesterday.

He said Paszkiewicz told students that if they didn't accept Jesus, "you belong in Hell." He also dismissed as unscientific the theories of evolution and the "Big Bang."

Paszkiewicz, a teacher at the high school since 1992, didn't return phone messages left for him at the high school; school principal Al Somma declined to comment.

But Superintendent of Schools Robert Mooney, who called Paszkiewicz "a wonderful teacher," said he was aware of the issues raised by LaClair - and the recordings - and said "corrective action" would be taken. But he refused to say what the "corrective action" would consist of or when it would take place.

As of yesterday, Paszkiewicz hasn't been disciplined in any way and continues to teach his class, Mooney said. In fact, LaClair says he's still in the class and that he's received good grades so far this year.

LaClair, who described his own religious views as "non-Christian," said he wanted to complain about Paszkiewicz to school administrators, but feared his teacher would deny the charges and that no one would believe a student's word against a teacher's. So he started taping Paszkiewicz in class.

"If I didn't have those CDs everything would have been dismissed," LaClair said.

On Oct. 10 - a month after he first requested a meeting with the principal - LaClair met with Paszkiewicz, Somma and the head of social studies department.

At first Paszkiewicz denied he mixed in religion with his history lesson and the adults in the room appeared to be buying it, LaClair said. But then LaClair reached into his backpack and produced the CDs.

At that point Paszkiewicz remarked, according to LaClair, "Maybe you're an atheist. You caught the big Christian fish."

"I don't hate this man," LaClair said yesterday. "But if you're going to preach your religion in a public school ... and lying in a meeting about it, then I think he must have some problem he can't deal with in a public school."