I’m a whisper away from 60. We didn’t have those problems in my day.
Saying a prayer out loud before tests was a common occurance. When the teacher suggested it that’s when we knew that we were in for a rough test, LOL. Heck, we even said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before class.
In my school you could say the word prayer so long as you didn’t say which God you were praying too. You could say the word Jesus in profanity but if you were caught posting an image of Jesus on shool property, even with permission from a teacher, you and the teacher could get into more trouble than if you were posting a Swastika.