...of course, there's a chance that an article outside of school can say whatever they want as long as the teacher follows the curriculum and doesn't take religion into the classroom. It sounds like this teacher is off the rails, but who knows unless you are actually there.
In the 70's I taught in a SC school where the elected superintendent was a retired Baptist minister. At that time, we had a social studies teacher who had Bible lessons and evolution was not taught. In that community it was accepted and expected.
Also, in the 60's it was common for Southern schools to use textbooks that seriously provided an altered version of the "war of Northern aggression" and earth science had a religious component. It's not all that new to see extreme values slip into the schools unless there is diligent monitoring.
If teachers receive certification today from accredited public universities most of the extreme values don't make it through the program. If the teachers come from private religious universities (that sometimes don't have national teacher accreditation), they can still reflect some pretty strange backgrounds. That's one of the dangers of Teach for America and alternative certification programs; they let the outliers and extremists slip through.
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