Systems are struggling with how to schedule the annual calendar. They are struggling to get graduation rates up beyond the embarrassing level. This? This just seems like a big pile of nothing about not much.

In the dictionary, this little dust-up would be found under the phrase “much ado about nothing.” A New York court ruling earlier this month has called into question the constitutionality of public schools renting space to startup churches on Sunday mornings — when school buildings are locked and empty.

According to a news story by Tennessean religion writer Bob Smietana, about 50 churches rent space from schools in Middle Tennessee, paying somewhere around $400,000 in rent.

Schools don’t make a profit off this — the rent is used to offset the cost of utilities and opening and closing the buildings. Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner counties all rent space to churches that cannot afford to build their own houses of worship. Other court rulings have said such arrangements are fine, provided the churches are treated like any other group and not given special treatment.

Well, of course this is fine. By any logical standard, this is not a public school establishing a place of worship. It’s renting space that’s empty over the weekend.

If the school were requiring all students to attend mandatory Christian chapel, that would be an entirely different thing. There’s much debate over prayer at graduation, prayer at football games, baccalaureate services in churches and other such issues that definitely raise constitutional questions.