The Freedom From Religion Foundation is demanding that a middle school in Walton County School District (Monroe, Ga.) remove a box asking for students’ prayers.

A concerned district community member informed the state/church watchdog that Youth Middle School is sponsoring an on-campus prayer box located in the school’s media center on behalf of the First Baptist Church. A sign taped to the front of the box reads: “Prayer Request. How can we pray for you? Fill out a prayer request form and place it in this box.” The prayer requisition form asks for name, prayer request and email for follow-up.

FFRF is calling for the district to immediately remove the prayer box.

“The district has a constitutional duty to remain neutral toward religion,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence writes. 

FFRF points out that Youth Middle School may not encourage students, staff or anyone else to pray or request prayer by sponsoring a church prayer box on school property. By giving a church access to the school to promote prayer to students, Youth Middle School — and thus the school district — needlessly marginalizes those students and community members among the 38 percent of Americans who are non-Christian, including the 43 percent of Generation Z members who are nonreligious.

FFRF will be closely monitoring the situation in order to ensure that the First Amendment rights of students are not further violated.

“A public middle school is not a church and should not be recruiting students for churches,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “A prayer box in a middle school not only violates the First Amendment, it tramples on parental control of their children’s religious practices, and is a gross invasion of student privacy.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 41,000 members across the country, including more than 600 members in Georgia. Its purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

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