NASHUA, NH – During Christina Darling’s first meeting on the Board of Education, she was taken aback by the board’s tradition of beginning each meeting with a prayer after the roll call attendance.
“When it came time to do the prayer, I watched as everybody else in the horseshoe obediently bowed their heads and folded their hands and I was very confused,” Darling said. “I asked [board president Jen Bishop] what do we do to get rid of this? How do we make the prayer go away? And she said at first, ‘It’ll never happen. The community cares about it too much.’”
Now, four years later, Darling has requested the board discuss and consider removing the prayer from the board meetings. The discussion has been added to the agenda for the Jan. 27 meeting.
“Having looked into it so many times myself I have personally felt it’s unconstitutional and apparently the Supreme Court agrees with me,” Darling said at the last BOE meeting on Jan. 6.
After doing research, Darling found that the Supreme Court had previously ruled in multiple cases that prayer in public school violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
One such case was Engel v. Vitale in 1962 in which the court concluded that “The state cannot hold prayers in public schools, even if participation is not required and the prayer is not tied to a particular religion.”
“When the facts are laid out, it definitely becomes a morality and an ethics issue, and I’m really hoping the board kind of proves to me my belief, which is that we all have high integrity to put those ethics first,” Darling said. “We all want what’s best for the kids, and I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it might be for a student whose family maybe doesn’t practice the same faith.”
This isn’t the first time the conversation of removing the prayer has come up. In 2019, the BOE voted 7-0 to continue with the prayer voluntarily after receiving several letters from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, asking them to discontinue the prayer.
At the time, president Heather Raymond, who is still a member of the board, abstained from voting, and said she felt neutral on the issue. While she found the prayer to be non-denominational, she felt it was Christian normative, and acknowledged the changing demographics in the community.
The prayer reads:
“Almighty God, we have the high honor and the serious duty of managing the education institutions of our beloved city. In our common endeavors may we find a spirit of unity and understanding which will enable us to face our multiple problems with an objective mind, with justice and charity for all so that any and all decisions made by us will be for the betterment and greater happiness of all of our fellow citizens. Amen.”
Darling said that instead of the prayer, she would be happy with a moment of silence or an opening statement that is “solely for the purpose of reminding us to put community and the children first.”
“I would just ask that we make it more nondenominational, and really really hit home the emphasis of this is our time to take that breath, take that moment that we need to put our board hats on and take off our work hats and our parent hats and everything else and to be there as board members,” she said.
While she feels the issue is cut and dry, Darling said she is intrigued to see what the other members of the board have to say. She feels that there could be some pushback, especially considering that there may be members who were on the board back in 2019, and who might feel the issue was evaded once and should be again.
On the other hand, she also thinks it could be an opportunity for others on the board who feel similarly to her – especially newer members – to take a stand and use their voice.
“I’ve already realized I’m not running for reelection, so I have nothing to lose,” Darling said. “I don’t have to play every move I make this year worried that I’m going to make somebody angry and they won’t vote for me. I would much rather spend this year pushing for as much positive change as I can and not be afraid of the judgement that I’ve been afraid of for three years.”
For Darling, she says this is her way of showing others – especially the students she had during her first year on the board as the student liaison – that just because someone says something can’t be done, doesn’t mean that it can’t be, and that when something is right you should fight for it, even if you’re the only one.
“I know changing whether or not they say a prayer at the beginning of a school board meeting seems so small and inconsequential, but at the same time, that’s the size of the steps we take on politics,” Darling said. “They’re tiny. They don’t seem like much to anybody, but those are the steps that allow for bigger things to happen because people grow confidence and people learn where their own morality stands and what they want to fight for.”