Employees in the Lamar County School District are expected to keep prayer and religion out of the classroom, according to an e-mail from Superintendent Tess Smith.
The e-mail sent to employees Wednesday afternoon came after the district removed a middle school teacher's prayer request board from her classroom after a humanist organization in Washington, D.C. filed a complaint.
"After consultation with our board attorney and discussion with the LCSD board, a decision has been made to remove the prayer request board (at Oak Grove Middle School)," Smith's e-mail read.
The American Humanist Association's Appignani Humanist Legal Center filed the complaint in August after a student's parent sent a picture of the teacher's prayer board to the group. The legal center said the board violated the First Amendment and the separation of church and state. More at WLBT
the Clarion Ledger reported:
Center attorney Monica Miller Miller said displaying the
board violates theEstablishment Clause of the First Amendment. The
letter sent to the district reads in part:
“As such, we
hereby demand that the School District promptly remove the board from
the door and provide us with written assurances that (1) there will be
no other unmarked place in the room ... that prayer requests can be made
or listed; and (2) public school teachers will not use their classrooms
to take prayer requests or otherwise promote or endorse religion.”
