Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention proclaimed its support for public school systems that provide off-campus biblical instruction during the school day.

Some pupils in Richmond County already have that option, and the number will grow this fall when the program expands to another campus. Faith groups and the county schools are finding the fence separating them isn't all that high after all.

"The fact that you have the separation of church and state doesn't mean you have to be unfriendly," said Pete Fletcher, the board's attorney.

In the Bible Belt of the South, there has been more acceptance of religion reaching outside the confines of churches, he said.

"There have been a number of things over the past 35 years that have set the stage for this cooperation," Mr. Fletcher said.

Among those are the federal Equal Access Act of 1984, legislation which made it possible for pupils to pray around the flagpole each year, and for groups such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to meet in schools, he said.

And then there was Christian Released Time, a program which provides Bible study to pupils off-campus during the school day.

It has been slow going for Released Time, said Jane Dennis, the chairwoman of the nonprofit Christian Learning Centers of Augusta, which has added a school a year since opening a pilot program at John Milledge Elementary School in 2003.

When Augusta organizers asked the county's permission to start Released Time in 2002, classes were already held in Aiken and Edgefield counties.

"They were all over the country, including Georgia," Mrs. Dennis said.

According to its Web site, releasedtime.org, Released Time Bible Education started in 1914, came before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952 and was ruled constitutional. Several million pupils have attended the program nationally, and it currently enrolls a quarter of a million children in more than 30 states.

The Augusta centers operate the nondenominational, devotional Bible study at no cost to the school system or the pupils. With their parents' permission, pupils trade an hour of physical education a week for an hour of Bible study at a neighboring church.

The centers provide liability insurance, some materials - pupils get to keep their Bibles - and, if needed, transportation between the school and host church.

Initially, the CLC got permission from Richmond County to pair Barton Chapel Elementary School with Broadway Baptist Church in south Augusta.

Critics - concerned about church-state prohibitions - questioned the program's legality, whether children should be allowed to miss phys-ed class, and concerns about insurance.

"The church had to be dropped when the issues could not be worked out," she said. "We had to start over."

The learning centers, however, weathered the challenges and established a pilot program in 2003 at Milledge for fourth- and fifth-graders. It added Monte Sano Elementary in 2004 and Glenn Hills Elementary in 2005. In August, pupils at Sue Reynolds Elementary will join the program.

Mr. Fletcher said pupils are able to participate in the program, while still earning the required number of class credits.

Principals and parents like the program, saying the children behave better, fight less and are more tolerant of one another, said Mrs. Dennis, who would like to step up the pace from one to several Richmond County schools a year. "So many children do not know what (The Ten Commandments) are or even why God put those together for us," she said.

The Christian Learning Centers also would like to offer the option to Columbia County but "the problem there is finding schools and nearby churches so we don't have to rent a bus," she said.

Besides the cost of a rental, ride time cuts into instruction time though volunteers can talk to the children as they now do during the five minutes between Glenn Hills Elementary and Glenn Hills Baptist Church, she said.

Some of the pupils attend church, some do not, but it gives all of them some moral foundation, she said.

To her, it also is a matter of parental rights.

"It is a time when the parent is allowed what a parent should be able to do and that is control their own child's education," Mrs. Dennis said.

And Richmond County school officials have found another way to reach out to the religious community.

Quincy Robertson, the president of the board's advisory committee, is contacting area churches to ask them to participate in the new program, which will align their messages with the school system's character trait words one Sunday a month.

"We feel like the schools can't do it all, and we feel like the community, and when I say the community I mean the parents, the churches, the things of that nature, need to come in and assist when they can," he said. "I think the schools have their hands full. They're doing as much as they can do, so I feel like we can do a little."

The unified messages will hit on topics such as self-control, the importance of school, respecting teachers and staying out of trouble, said Mr. Robertson, whose committee recommended the policy.

With the passage of legislation this past session of the General Assembly, school officials also can start offering Bible classes in the fall of 2007. The classes must be academic and not evangelistic.

Mr. Fletcher said no decision has been made about whether to offer the classes, but concerns have been expressed as to how to fit them into the schedule. In the day of high-stakes testing and accountability, there is little time left for much else, he said.

The school board always has been receptive to accommodating the requests of area churches, Mr. Fletcher said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Reach Greg Gelpi at (706) 828-3851 or greg.gelpi@augustachronicle.com.

Reach Virginia Norton at (706) 823-3336 or virginia.norton@augustachronicle.com.