School Bus Driver's Prayers Run Into Church-State Flap

Charisma News ^ | 12/13/01 | Andy Butcher

[marshmallow]

Daily prayer started after Sept. 11 terrorist attacks

A Maryland school bus driver fears that she could lose her job because of onboard prayers by her young passengers. Many of the students join in saying the Lord's prayer before disembarking at school -- and the short ritual has become the center of a major church-state dispute.

According to "The Baltimore Sun," Stella Tsourakis has been called in twice by school transportation officials and warned about the prayer offered by Hampstead-area youngsters on her daily middle and high school route.

The 37-year-old led those onboard in reciting the Lord's prayer on Sept. 12, the day after the terrorist attacks. She sent a note home to parents asking permission to continue the brief prayer, and all but one approved.

When Tsourakis was told last month by school transportation officials she had to stop leading the daily invocation or risk losing her job, she complied. But pupils from Shiloh Middle School decided they wanted to keep praying themselves -- and students at North Carroll High School decided to join in, too.

Now when the bus stops in front of the school, the doors are opened so that anyone who wants to can leave, while the rest wait a moment and recite the Lord's prayer, the "Sun" said.

Tsourakis has the support of parents, students and others in the community. But Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said she had "poisoned the well constitutionally." He told the newspaper: "Those children are obviously doing the prayers because she told them that's what they should do. It's organized prayer in a school bus after the kids were instructed how to do it by a government contract official. That's just wrong."

For her part, Tsourakis thought she was just helping soothe the youngsters' fears after Sept. 11. "Here you have the president of the United States, telling us to pray, national television services with praying," she said. "I'm not giving [the pupils] my beliefs. We never discussed religion at all. I can't do that."

School officials declined to comment on the issue, saying it was a personnel matter. There was disagreement, the newspaper reported, about whether school bus drivers had been briefed on church-state issues as part of their orientation training.

The Maryland controversy surfaces in a mixed week for school prayer. First the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal over a Jacksonville, Fla., case, effectively endorsing voluntary student prayer at graduation ceremonies. Then an appeals court struck down a Louisiana law -- believed to be the last of its kind in the country -- allowing spoken morning prayer in classrooms.

[MissMillie]

Not likely. Muslim prayers are said at specific times of the day.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

That must be code for something bad.