PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. (AP) — About 1,000 people have signed a petition after a Catholic grade school in suburban Kansas City denied admission to a same-sex couple’s child.

The Rev. Craig Maxim told families in a letter last month that he sought guidance from the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas when the same-sex couple asked to enroll their child in kindergarten at St. Ann Catholic School in Prairie Village, Kansas. He said the archdiocese advised against accepting the child because the parents could not “model behaviors and attitudes consistent with the Church’s teachings.”

About half of the people who signed the petition to Archbishop Joseph Naumann and the archdiocesan schools superintendent are St. Ann members. Catholic schools nationwide are divided over whether to admit same-sex couples’ children.