A series of Court cases since 1963 that banned compulsory prayer in public schools have had a chilling effect on anything God related in the schools. The Lemon Test from Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), stated that any practice sponsored within a state-run school had to meet the following criteria:
- Have a secular purpose;
- Must neither advance nor inhibit religion; and
- Must not result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion.
However, out of caution, public schools became reticent about allowing any activities, content or practices that could be construed to have “religious roots”. In recent years, the reticence has sometimes turned to open hostility toward religion.
An example of this confusion and perhaps, hostility: in 2022, the FCPS School Board changed FCPS Spring Break Holiday from its traditional week — Holy Week. Students reported they were told that it was because the schools did not want it linked to the Christian Holiday of Easter, violating its “Equity” policy. A PowerPoint presentation of the Board’s Calendar Committee seems to confirm this interpretation. Framing Inclusion and Equity appears to require rejecting the “Historical Responses” it called “exclusion” and “assimilation” (institutional oppression) and opting for “pluralism”:
This change was short-lived and in 2023 it returned to Holy Week because of push back from the community. The majority of families and staff preferred the traditional Spring Break during Holy Week.
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