Board of Education votes unanimously to change opening prayer to opening statement 

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Board of Education meeting, Jan. 6. Photo/Mya Blanchard

NASHUA, NH – The Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to change the prayer at the start of board meetings to an opening statement. 

The change includes replacing “Almighty God” with “As elected officials,” removing the word “Amen” from the end, and having“opening statement” instead of the word “prayer” on the agenda.

Board member Christina Darling had requested that the board have the discussion and consider removing the prayer at the last board meeting, as she believed the prayer was unconstitutional.

“I want to start by saying that religion, faith, spirituality, they’re all beautiful expressions of a family’s values and beliefs, and I’m so proud to be a part of such a multi-theistic community,” Darling said Monday night. “It’s because of the religious diversity in our students and in our community that I want to see the routine change.” 

She noted the case of  Engel v. Vitale in 1962, in which it was ruled that the reading of a prayer at the start of a school day violated the Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from establishing a religion. 

On the other hand, Darling also acknowledged the legislative-prayer tradition that allows for some types of prayer to start legislative meetings. 

This then forms the question of whether the prayer at the BOE meeting should be held to the court’s school prayer precedent, or the legislative prayer exception. 

For this, Darling referred to the court case of  Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. v. Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education. In this case, the court used The Lemon Test to determine that the school board’s prayer policy at meetings did violate the establishment clause, and that religious invocations at the starts of the board meetings are not within the legislative-prayer tradition. 

Other members of the board said that they, too, have been uncomfortable with the prayer, but hadn’t had the courage to bring it up. 

Student representative Sheikh Ahmeed felt similarly.

“As a Muslim, I’ve always felt very out of place because I was always surrounded by mostly Christians, so when I first came into my first meeting I heard the prayer and I was really kind of shocked,” he said. “I was sort of frozen. I didn’t know what to do.”

The board unanimously agreed to the change, although Shewanda Daniels-Williams said she did so with bias, and wanted to emphasize the weight of removing the words “Almighty God,” and “Amen.”

“We understand that everyone has a different prayer and they have different religions, but as a school district, we could be more inclusive and find out what that means to other people and say that instead of removing one of the foundational things that caused the Board of Education to be a Board of Education, [and] to cause public school to be public school, [which] was so that America could learn to read the Bible,” she said. 

“I will accept it because I am a believer in God, so I’m not offended. But I also don’t seek to offend,” she added. 

While the decision to remove or change the prayer didn’t need to come to a vote and could have been decided by board president Jen Bishop, she said she wanted to have a conversation in order to hear everyone’s opinions. 

“I think [the change] honors our community more and it gives peace of mind to the people who need to open up the meeting and be reminded that we are here for our city and we are here for our students,” Bishop said.  


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