Prinicipal just made us pray

[Jenny A]

The rules about prayer in school are pretty simple but when students get involved it can become more complex. I summarize the rules as follows:

1) Prayer cannot be required in school not even as a mandatory period for prayer or self-reflection;

2) Prayer cannot be school lead or sponsored;

3) Students can pray in school provided they don't disturb others;

4) Students can pray and/or express religious opinions in school assignments and/or when addressing other students including when addressing other students at assemblies and over the loud-speaker provided that the school purpose for the assignment or the student address is not to have prayer or religious speech and when deciding what assignments to display or who will give an address prayer and religious content is neither encouraged nor forbidden.


It's rule number 4 that sometimes leads to confusion.
If the school required you to pray, rule number one was broken regardless of who lead the prayer. If the student addressing the school decided of his own accord to pray as part of the address, it was probably legal unless the teachers motioned you to or otherwise required you to pray too. If the school choose the student because he/she was going to pray, that too would be illegal. But if the student decided to pray as part of an address that was primarily for another purpose and the staff did not suggest others pray, it was probably legal.

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/relig...dance.html