It’s not easy taking a stand.
It’s even harder to do it alone.
When we arrived to See You at the Pole, there were only a couple of others there.
I could sense my daughter’s relief when classmates began filling in the spaces, one-by-one. Silently they grabbed hands and bowed their heads. Each student voluntarily joining together to pray for their school, their teachers, their nation. It took courage.
Moms and dads were sprinkled in and out of the circle, suggesting kids squeeze the hand of the person next to them if they wanted to “pass” on praying out loud.
My son and daughter didn’t squeeze. But my heart did.
It’s easier to have courage when you’re not alone.
As prayers were lifted, the sidewalks got crowded with students and parents pressing in. Some were staring, whispering. Pointing. I opened my eyes and I heard the mom behind me tell her son, loudly in a tone that sent a chill down my spine: “No, son, they are NOT allowed to pray like this. It’s completely illegal!”
I watched her march into the school, dragging her son behind. He looked perplexed.
I think he knew in his heart his mom was wrong.
Our Christian students have many legal rights on a public school campus to pray and do even more.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Share these with your kids. Encourage them to stand, even without a flag pole.
- A Bible or Christian group can advertise and make announcements at school if other groups and clubs are allowed.
- Valedictorians, salutatorians, honorary student speakers can give speeches on religious subjects, including reading from the Bible; baccalaureate services are permitted and if the school facilities are available to other groups then they most be made available for baccalaureate services.
- Students are free to observe religious holidays and express their beliefs and convictions as they apply to a particular holiday; they have the right to distribute Christmas cards or religious tracts on the “true meaning of Christmas” during non-instructional times.
- Praying in groups or alone is allowable and legal (including lunch-time and between classes) if it does not interfere with instructional times.
- Students may bring Bibles or religious books or literature to school as long as they do not disrupt instructional times.
- Students may opt out of a class for objectionable religious reasons. Unless parental consent is given, no student shall be required to submit to any kind of test designed to reveal information of a non-academic nature. Click hereto obtain a letter to your School Principal enforcing YOUR childs rights as a student based on Hatch Amendment -this is extremely important.
Download and read the entire document….you might be surprised at just how legal it is to be a Christian in public school:
A Christian Student’s Bill of Rights
We recently participated in See you at the Pole at our school, and it was such a blessing. Thank you for this post. As a mother of children in public school, and also an employee working for the public school system, I have said for years that people are deceived about the rights of Christians in public school. The mother you spoke of in your post shared a sentiment heard often…and it is blatantly false. I have often shared that people need to be educated on their rights. As you proved in your post, we legally have much more freedom to exercise our faith than some realize. I will be sharing this link with others.
Blessings to you…
P.S. Beautiful pictures to capture those moments, as well…
Thank you for this post. As a Christian teacher in a public school, I know first hand that many Christian parents and students do not know their rights. Many teachers are like the mother you wrote about; they are either mis-informed or are directly oppositional to anything Christian. It saddens me when fellow teachers (nonbelievers) get all bent out of shape over what they think is not allowed when it comes to Christians, but never question any other “celebrations”, messages on Tee shirts, etc.
Thank you Kristen! My kids attend public school and so far, there haven’t been any issues like this with the other parents or administration, but I KNOW it’s coming. I got a chill in my spine when I read about the mom who said it was illegal. It’s so very sad that people hate Christianity so much.
Thank you for educating people about this. It drives me crazy when people from either side say that “there’s no prayer in schools.” kids can pray in almost any way they want and are free to share their faith with others. It’s just that school officials in public schools can’t lead the students. Also important to note though that this could also be called “your Jewish student has rights” or ” your Muslim student has rights.”. We are blessed in this country with religious freedom, which means that students of all faiths may do these things.
I am so glad that you pointed out that non-Christians have the same right to prayer clubs and study. We can never become a theocracy. No matter how small the town, how small the school, we don’t need to be small minded about this basic American right.
Thanks, Kristen~ it is good to have something to refer to when question come up as to what can and can not be done. Truly amazing~and sad~ how misinformed people can be.
a few students approached me last year about having a bible study after school in my classroom. YES! so we meet on tuesdays and sing, pray and read scripture. it. is. awesome.
I’m so thankful for our little rural public school that wouldn’t think of trampling my children’s right to practice their faith. I’m praying the day never comes that we have to fight for their rights, but should it we’ll be prepared!
So what happened with the rude mom? Anything?
you mean other than the fist fight? just kidding. Nothing happened. I didn’t know who she was and decided to just close my eyes and pray for her
Thanks for sharing this. Sorry to hear there was a mom out there being vocally against the kids praying. Sadly, I’m sure there are so many others.
I’ve never had an experience with a school censoring any of my students. I guess I started thinking it was some myth made up in the media to get people riled up over a non-issue. Like breastfeeding in public. I did it all the time and no one ever said anything unkind to me. Usually I was told that I was doing something wonderful.
Our football coach won’t let the boys eat their Friday meal after school until they’ve prayed. In Jesus’ name. And he leads them in the Lord’s Prayer before they take the field.
I think some of it has to do with where you live and such. In the small town that we live in, we don’t hear much if anything about Christian rights being violated. Yet, in a school district about 2 hours away, we hear alot.
I’m always surprised about people’s lack of knowledge when it comes to things like Christian rights in school and other public places as well as gun rights/laws and even other things like breast feeding. There was actually an instant last year in a nearby mall where a mall security told a nursing mother she could not do that in the mall. It ended up all over the newspapers and the local news and the next weekend (this happened on a Thursday I believe), every single bench in the mall had at least one nursing mom on it. I had a good chuckle about that.
I just wanted to pop in and mention that the ACLJ has all sorts of information on their web site. If you are ever in a situation were you think you or your child’s rights have been violated, the ACLJ are the people to contact.
I love this post. I am always saddened by people that confuse prayer led in schools and prayer in schools. I for one am totally against prayer led in schools but very much for prayer in school. I think often Christians believe that if a prayer is led by a principle or teacher it will be to our God, but if given that allowance, they could have children praying to whatever God they want. Non-Christians sometimes take the opposite stance and want to ban Christian prayers and perhaps other prayers too. The thing is, you can’t really enforce that. If I want to pray for someone, I can pray silently regardless of where I happen to be and there’s not a darn thing anyone could do about it. See you at the flag is not about taking a stance on the prayer in schools debate, at least not the way I understand it. It’s taking a stance on prayer for schools and our communities.
Thanks for posting this! SO many do not know their rights and that is a shame.
Thanks for sharing!
Janice
Celebrating Family
Thanks for posting this. I used to participate in See You At the Pole back in the ’90s. Glad to hear it’s still going on, at least in some places. At my public highschool, it led to an all-student Bible study (we had a teacher “advisor” to give us legitimate club status, but he was scared to actually come and participate, I guess).
Those of us who send our children to public school (I plan to, starting in about 2 years) should be mindful that it is a mission field – and to be courteous of the students, teachers, and staff at our school(s).
While I appreciate the good intentions of this post, a publicly middle school in our community has been allowing the local Muslim mosque to conduct prayer sessions on Fridays in the school cafeteria. the girls must sit behind the boys, so as not to give them inappropriate thoughts, and menstruating girls must sit behind everyone else. Non-muslim students are not allowed.
So while I appreciate everyone’s good intentions to lead a life where spirituality plays a role, as a Catholic mother trying to raise an empowered girl this situation offends me. The notes from this publicly funding school requesting I only send Halal snacks into school with her, out of respect for the Muslim students, offended me. Enough that she now goes to a private, non-religious school.
Spirituality does not offend me, but there is a time and a place for everything. This is a double-edged sword. My daughter should not be in an environment where one has to sit at the back of any room simply because of gender, and that is what allowing Muslim or Christianity religions to promote their beliefs in a publicly funded school can lead to.
Maybe we should focus on teaching our children math, science and reading at school and leave spirituality for the home and Church.