A Christian school that’s part of the Rock Church in San Diego installed nine T-Mobile cell antennas on the side of its building, without informing parents, according to local court documents.
Parents have told local news outlets they are alarmed by what they see as deception and lack of communication from the private school, Rock Academy, and worried the antennas’ radiation could harm the students.
The private school, which serves nearly 500 K-12 students, is part of Rock Church, one of the largest megachurches in the U.S., which is pastored by former NFL player Miles McPherson. According to parents, the antennas were hidden from sight, and Rock Church had no plans to disclose their existence to parents.
T-Mobile plans to activate the antennas after Memorial Day when the school session ends, according to a statement from the church.
In a statement, the church apologized for signing a contract with T-Mobile without informing or consulting parents.
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“We realized that it was a mistake to sign the contract without first having a discussion with staff and parents and we sincerely apologized, and apologize, for the stress that this has caused,” the church said.
T-Mobile signed a contract with the school and began construction on the antennas in 2022, according to a court order. It wasn’t until February 2023 that Rock Church and Academy leadership held meetings with parents to discuss concerns and questions, according to the church’s statement.
Parents accidentally discovered the antennas
Parents allegedly didn’t know about the cell antennas until someone saw the antennas while the school was closed for a holiday break, parent Laura Buckley told the publication The Defender.
Throughout installation, the school and T-Mobile hid the antennas behind tarps, Buckley said. However, during Christmas break in early January 2023, a mother saw the antennas while the tarp was down, Buckley explained.
The mother snapped a photo, Buckley said, and then people began to find out about the antennas.
“The problem is not just that the Rock failed to inform parents and staff before signing the contract,” Buckley said. “They were presumably never going to disclose the antennas at all.”
“Now they are hidden behind a facade that matches the building,” she added. Buckley has children in third, sixth and eighth grade at the school.
Parents urge, “Stop the cover up!”
Tiffany Fletcher, a mother with a sixth grader at Rock Academy, told The Defender, that the school “tried to be hush-hush” about the matter at a later March 2023 meeting.
The church said in its statement that it held the March meeting to inform the whole Rock Church congregation. However, Fletcher said the church seemed more concerned about “managing its brand,” at the meeting.
Concerned parents then passed out flyers about the antennas at church, Fletcher said. The flyers said, “Stop the cover up!” and expressed concern about the lack of parental consent in the issue.
In March 2023, the church tried to negotiate with T-Mobile to have the antennas removed from its property, according to the church’s statement. The church prohibited T-Mobile from coming on its property to access the antennas.
Parents also took action and filed a writ of mandate against the city of San Diego in April 2023. They asked the city to disallow the installation of the antennas at the school. This action is currently on appeal, Fletcher said.
Then in January 2024, T-Mobile sued Rock Church, claiming that the Rock committed a breach of contract when it denied T-Mobile’s access to school grounds, according to court documents.
They also asked for access to church property to activate the antennas. In April, a judge granted their request.
The contract with T-Mobile was initially signed to generate more income for the church, Rock Church spokesperson Meiling Nazar told SD News.
“The Rock Church and Academy decided to lease a portion of its Point Loma campus building roof to T-Mobile for a cell phone antenna to generate additional income for the ministry,” Nazar said. “The Rock’s congregants and parents expressed concerns about the cell antenna installation, and as a church, we are heartbroken to see how our decision has affected the Rock’s parents and families.”
Antennas’ radiation pose potential health risks
Parents are concerned that the cell antennas pose serious health risks for children at the school.
“A cell tower was installed on my children’s school without notice and parents are currently fighting this,” Rock Academy parent Joseph Guilmet told SD News. “I don’t understand why the Rock Church would allow this on a school 20 feet above preschoolers if there is even a slight chance of them being exposed to harmful radiation. And why was this done without us even knowing?”
Cell phone antennas produce RF waves, a type of non-ionizing radiation, according to the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC). Towers like T-Mobiles typically don’t emit an unsafe level of radiation, the FCC said.
However, several independent, peer-reviewed studies found health risks to these wireless waves.
In 2018, a study found that adolescents exposed to higher levels of wireless radiation had delayed fine and gross motor skills, spatial working memory and attention compared with those exposed to lower radiation levels. Additionally, a 2017 study discovered that living near a cell tower was linked to blood changes.
“I fear this is a health and safety issue for everyone in the vicinity,” Academy parent and registered nurse Tiffany Preciado told SD News. “RF exposure is known to affect children the most. There are at least 1,000 school children in the one block surrounding the antennas.”
The church said it was working on a “mitigation plan” to prevent RF radiation from the antennas from impacting its campus, according to its statement.
The church said it plans to install several RF-shielding materials at the antennas’ location. Church leaders also hired a RF radiation mitigation company to track RF radiation levels, according to the statement.
Rock Church’s history of controversies
This isn’t the first time Rock Church has made headlines for a controversy.
In 2022, an ordained elder at the megachurch was arrested on suspicion of abuse and murder in the death of her 11-year-old daughter, who was adopted, The Roys Report (TRR) previously reported.
The elder, Leticia McCormack, is facing murder and torture charges stemming from the August 30th death of her daughter and is no longer serving at the church. McCormack’s trial is still ongoing, according to local media.
The biological parents of the children told TRR that they suspected their children were being abused by McCormack and told Rock Church, but the church ignored their concerns.
Rock Church has had other incidents of child abuse involving its employees.
Earlier in 2022, David Looney, a former teacher at Rock Academy pleaded guilty to crimes associated with the alleged sexual abuse of a former student.
In 2013, multiple anonymous families sued Rock Church in civil court, alleging another church employee had sexually abused their children.
Both civil suits have since been dismissed, TRR reported.
Freelance journalist Liz Lykins writes for WORLD Magazine, Christianity Today, Ministry Watch, and other publications.
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8 Responses
Was it worth $4k a month to create this messy optic? I know of one ministry that signed a deal years ago and it has proven to be more trouble than it’s worth.
Follow the money, find the problem…the problem is, there is to much “smoke and mirrors” going on that no one can find up from down.
I’ll just make several points…
1) I can see why they tried to keep this “swept under the rug”. People who are perfectly happy to keep using their cell phone will go on and on about “cell phone radiation”, using the term radiation so they will equate it to like standing next to a lump of plutonium or something. People don’t understand the inverse square law (power drops off rapidly with distance) or power levels used by these sites.
2) I wouldn’t stand right next to an antenna on a “cell tower” that’s intended to cover like 50 miles; they run like 1000W+. These sites to fill in coverage in the city run 50W or less. It’s like, you stand next to a 1000W space heater, you’ll get burned; you can have your hand right by something throwing off 50W of heat and it’s no problem at all.
3) If they’re like the sites I’ve seen on buildings (just with some “camouflage”), they are probably pointing *out* anyway.
In Old Brick (a former church and current community center in Iowa City), there’s a site mounted in the steeple, and there’s actually a big ol’ “RF shadow” underneath it, ironically the reception inside the place is still junk even though there’s a cell site directly above your head. The site antennas point out not straight down.
I have 27 years building these sites. The max RF output is 96 watts. Picture a 100 watt lightbulb on a pole 100′ in the air and that will give you an idea. And by the way, the average cell phone puts out 6/10ths of a watt. The real danger from cellular communications is the idiot who texts and drives.
Agreed, But then many evangelicals think 5G causes cancer or is a conspiracy linked to COVID and supposed microchips that are injected via the COVID vaccine….
This engineer is correct. I too retired from AT&T as a cellular engineer for many years. These characteristics are real. Likely no danger at the church. And the ugly antennas were hidden to avoid embarrassment.
I understand the concern as a parent but at the same time this is an area that is so easy to get people in a fervor over (because the consequences sound scary) due to “studies” that eventually are overturned. Although the church could have prevented some of this by disclosing the construction project (by the way using covers is a typical construction practice for safety not hiding), they only have to answer to city authorities (and indirectly the equipment has to satisfy FCC standards) for a project. Do these parents notify people who come to their house for a child’s birthday party about the use of wi-fi in their house? Probably not. But it is real easy to throw some stones at organizations with this sort of unjustified fervor. And this sort of unbalanced story seems to make this worse. I found some interesting information in the American cancer society website about these tires off installations:
“Indoors with a base station mounted on the outside of the building
The level of energy from RF waves inside buildings where a base station is mounted is typically much lower than the level outside, depending on the construction materials of the building. Antennas are pointed away from the side of the building, and the energy level behind the antenna is hundreds to thousands of times lower than in front. On top of this, wood or cement block reduces the exposure to energy from RF waves by a factor of about 10. Therefore, if an antenna is mounted on the side of a building, the exposure level in the room directly behind the wall is typically well below the recommended exposure limits.”
“Better to ask for forgivenss than ask for permission.”
Rule 10 in Manifesto of a Narcissist