There is concern over the use of prayer at Pickens County School District meetings.

Advertisement School board pushes for prayer after high court ruling Pickens County schools could revise prayer policy Share Shares Copy Link Copy

An Upstate school district is one step closer to changing its prayer policy for the second time in less than 18 months and it all started with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.The ruling made in May allows the town council in Greece, New York to continue having sectarian prayers before meetings.The majority ruled the tradition doesn’t violate the Establishment Clause as long as residents are not coerced, and no religion is disparaged.The ruling has the Pickens County school board revisiting its policy.Board members met with their attorney and area pastors to discuss making some changes.Chairman Alex Saitta said threats of a lawsuit last year pressured the board to move away from its traditional student-led prayers.Under the most recent policy, board members deliver non-sectarian prayers before meetings.But Saitta said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling allows them to revisit that policy again.“It's not just the school board of Pickens County that will have to look at their prayer policy. It's pretty much across the country,” said Saitta.Some would like to see student-led prayer come back, but Saitta said the board needs to be careful to make sure it is still following the Constitution.“We believe it's a tradition we should continue, and we believe people in the community support it so we did it within the law and now that the law has actually allowed us to move it a little bit further to the right we are going to move with it,” said Saitta.He wants to adopt a policy that randomly selects a different clergy person in the county to lead a prayer before board meetings.A group of pastors at the meeting had mixed reactions to that idea. “For us to have a prayer, according to our faith, or for us to have a legitimate prayer, it would have to be in Jesus' name,” said Pastor Jimmy Burrell. “I am not going to pray to Allah. I am going to pray to Jesus, but I understand,” said Pastor Jimmy Anthony.Under the policy any person of any religion could lead the prayer, as long as they did not try to convert anyone or disparage other religions.The next step is to draft a policy based on what was discussed Thursday night, and then the school board would have to vote on it.