School yoga program gets $1.4m grant

A Southern California school district has accepted a $1.4 million grant to expand a student yoga program that sparked religious complaints and a lawsuit.

U-T San Diego says the grant was accepted Wednesday by trustees of the Encinitas Union School District.

The grant is from the same nonprofit foundation that provided earlier funding to place yoga teachers at all nine schools.

The district says the program is secular despite yoga’s roots in Eastern religion. Opponents who believed it violated religious freedom sued the district but lost last month.

Attorney Dean Broyles, who filed the suit, calls acceptance of the new grant “an outrageous breach of public trust.”