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to add an elective course on the Bible. Teachers already refer to the Bible when it's key to understanding history, art and literature, he said.
• Frankly, with the budget situation we have here in Yankton, we're trying to hang onto the courses and the staff that we have, let alone starting new ones," Gertsema said.
• Superintendents at other districts also said the Legislature's non-binding resolution won't change how their schools treat the Bible, citing a lack of money to add a separate course and the difficulty in crafting a course that would avoid controversy.
• Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Sioux Falls, the main sponsor of the legislative resolution, said it is intended to let people know that academic instruction about the Bible is constitutional as long as teachers don't press students to accept religious beliefs.

• Hickey said he knows of no South Dakota school currently offering an elective course on the Bible, but he's been contacted by people in three communities, including Yankton, who want their schools to do so.
• "I'm just trying to take the fear factor out of it for a school district that might want to do that," said Hickey, pastor at the Church of the Gate in Sioux Falls.
• Officials with the state Education Department said that each school district will be left to make

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