The religion class lesson plan for third graders attending Catholic schools is to learn and understand the Ten Commandments. Usually, after reciting these moral codes that Catholics are supposed to live by because they were set in stone for us, the third graders then have to create their own set of tablets a.k.a. art project.

On January 31, 1983 I waited until 7 a.m. to tell my mom, Carmella, that my Ten Commandments art project was due that day, after knowing for two weeks it was due. I delivered this news to her as she stood at the stove cooking breakfast. She reacted by throwing the brick of Habersatt’s Scrapple at my head and then wind-milled my backside with the cooking spatula. Within five minutes she had me and my older sister Dawn cutting tombstone shapes out of orange construction paper and with a Crayola marker I was chicken-scratching my Roman Numerals from I to X at the kitchen table, a chunk of piggy intestines and bowel parts in my eyebrows from the breakfast meat attack. Looking back, I think I got a B-minus on the project, probably because I added XI: Thou Shall Not Hit Your Kids With Scrapple.

Fast-forward thirty years and third graders are still learning the Ten Commandments with Rita Ezzai’s class at St. George School, 2700 E. Venango Street. The tradition of having the students create and design their own set of Ten Commandments is still going strong, and the tablets are prominently displayed at the front of the classroom. As a special project during the annual Catholic Schools Week festivities and events (Jan. 27-Feb. 3), Ezzai asked her pupils,

“How can you raise standards in your community?” As hands shot up with some do-gooder suggestions, the classroom conversation turned to a gigantic billboard poised hundreds of feet in the air near the Allegheny Avenue exit of I-95 that dares motorists to break the Sixth Commandment.

Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery. Except this billboard advertiser, ArrangementFinders.com, crossed out the word “not” and urged motorists: Thou Shall Commit Adultery. Let’s just say, Ezzai’s third grade class grabbed their slingshots and went after Goliath. ArrangementFinders.com is an online dating site based in Toronto whose client base is older men looking to date younger women. But maybe “date” is too classy. The billboard clearly advertises adultery, so the client base is usually older men wanting to have an affair with a younger woman, plain and simple. It’s not against the law, but for a third grader learning the Ten Commandments and for most people with a conscience, it’s morally wrong.

If you think their protest is a bit over the top, consider this simple statement from third grader Olivia Higgins-Cassel: “It’s wrong because little kids are just learning about the Ten Commandments and it’s telling them when you grow up it’s okay to cheat on your husband or

It seems that it is okay with ArrangementFinders.com because all the attention the St. George School third grade class has rallied up is actually attracting business to their website. A company spokesman said all the publicity generated by the controversy has actually brought the dating site lots of new customers.

But it’s not about the bottom line or business according to Ezzai, who has taught at St. George School for over two decades. “These children have a right to live in a community that is safe, that is morally up to our standards,” she said. “And we don’t want it here. And we want them to know that it’s not welcome in our community and we would like it taken down.”

Although the odds are against the company taking down the classless billboard (they even have adult film actress and Charlie Sheen’s ex Bree Olsen as their spokesmodel), Ezzai is proud that her third graders put up a fight for what they felt would raise standards in their Port Richmond community.

“In the end my third graders learned they can make a difference in their community,” said Ezzai, “and my students have more class as seven and eight year olds than those people behind that billboard.”