FAYETTEVILLE, N.C., Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A North Carolina high school student said she was willing to sacrifice her honor roll grades to avoid writing an essay contrary to her Christian beliefs.
Tieanna Trough, a student at Gray's Creek High School in Fayetteville, said her English class was instructed to write essays on making deals with the devil as part of a curriculum studying Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker," WTVD-TV, Durham/Raleigh, reported Tuesday.
Trough said her faith bars her from writing about deals with the devil.
"I believe you don't write about how to sell your soul to the devil," she said.
The girl's parents said they agreed with their daughter.
"We can't allow God into the classrooms, but yet they are going to allow the devil in the classroom, that's the way I felt," said her mother, Monice McLean. "They were told if they didn't do it they would get a zero."
Trough said teachers have now given her an alternate subject for her essay, how and why money is important. She said the new essay subject is acceptable.
