CHICAGO: A science teacher at Trinity Christian School is out on $100,000 (RM434,700) bond after he was charged April 14 with one felony count of grooming.

Grooming is a felony crime in which someone uses electronic means to solicit sexual activity from a minor.

Lemuel Elechicon of Crest Hill, Illinois, posted bail and was released from Will County Jail a day after he was charged of inappropriately texting a 13-year old school girl.

The parents of the students alerted the Shorewood Police Department to the alarming texts Elechicon had sent to their daughter since January. A parent of another student informed the couple of the texts.

The school which is run by the Ridgewood Baptist Church in Joliet, Illinois is under the jurisdiction of the Shorewood Police Department. It is about 45 miles southwest of Chicago.

Elechicon,51, came from the Philippines when he was 12-years-old. The Joliet Patch reported that he taught science class with a curriculum revolving around the Bible-based creationism.

He graduated from a Bible school in Iowa and has been teaching for 26 years—with the past 12 years at Trinity Christian school. The school board chairman, Frederick Alexander announced that Elechicon was placed on administrative leave pending resolution of his case.

His teacher’s website is reported to have posted, among other things–“By faith, Christ saved me from my sins when I was in high school,” Elechicon said on his page.

On what he teaches: “You will learn a solid creation-based worldview and that, contrary to popular belief, operational science runs counter to the idea of evolution and ‘millions of years,’” Elechicon says of his creationism curriculum. “The facts of nature, rightly interpreted, provide an irrefutable case for the accuracy and trustworthiness of the book that claims to be the inspired word of the Creator Himself!” – Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network