EDMONTON—Morning prayers are causing a stir at a public school northwest of Edmonton.

Sturgeon Heights School in St. Albert sent a letter home last Friday saying designated classrooms will have staff and students lead recitations of the Lord’s Prayer after morning announcements throughout the year, and asking parents to respond by Monday whether their child in the kindergarten to Grade 9 school will participate.

Those who opt out of the morning prayer “will be placed in a room that does not recite the prayer,” states the letter, with school principal Shannon Requa’s name at the bottom.

Luke Fevin, founder of secular public education advocacy group Alberta Parents for Unbiased Public Inclusive Learning (A PUPIL), said it is “fundamentally wrong” for a non-religious school to offer prayer for one religion and to separate Christian and non-Christian students in the process.

“It’s a public school, as people of all faiths and no faiths, and they only do a Christian prayer. This is so glaringly, obviously wrong,” Fevin said.

He said he has been trying to rid Sturgeon Heights of prayer since his daughters attended the school nine years ago. At that time, the Lord’s Prayer was broadcast over the school PA system for everyone to participate.

He claimed his family was driven out of Sturgeon Heights by the community for standing up to the practice.

“We got told so many times, ‘We’re a Christian school or a Christian nation or a Christian community, if you don’t like it, go somewhere else.’ That’s the attitude of a lot of these people,” Fevin said.

Fevin said he got a copy of the current letter from a parent who disapproved of the morning prayers, but added many parents of current students are afraid to speak out because it could negatively affect their kids.

He argues the practice denies non-Christians their charter rights of freedom from religion because it is coercive, forces kids and families to self-identify their religious beliefs and stigmatizes students who don’t pray.

The school has broadcast morning prayers since it opened in 1972, but the practice was suspended in 2011 after Fevin and other parents complained. Afterwards, the school reintroduced prayers, but added a choice for parents to opt out.

The school directed media inquiries to Sturgeon Public Schools board chair Terry Jewell on Monday, who said the district is not promoting any religion, but merely providing something parents have asked for.

“Believe it or not, the only reason the Lord’s Prayer is being done is because the parents want it,” Jewell said.

The school ended morning prayers for junior high students at the request of parents three years ago, he said, but has kept the prayers for kindergarten to Grade 6 students.

Jewell said students will either start their day in a meeting room where the prayer is recited, or in one where it is not recited — based on their parents’ response to the letter — and then rejoin their classmates.

He denied that the practice amounts to a form of segregation.

“We’re talking about a three- or four-minute operation here. It’s like blink and it’s done and everybody’s off to their regular read and write and arithmetic stuff and away they go,” Jewell said.

He said a recent survey of the school’s parents showed close to 80 per cent wanted the Lord’s Prayer to continue.

He said he has not been asked to accommodate morning prayers from other religious denominations, but would be willing to entertain such a request.

“If folks wanted something different, I can’t imagine anyone would have a problem with it,” Jewell said. “The only place you might run into a problem is if you had a hundred different folks wanting to do it. At some point in time, you probably might not do it for two people.”

The school has about 500 students.

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St. Albert has several Catholic schools, but Jewell said Christian parents who are not Roman Catholic are likely to send their kids to a public school.

Parents in nearby Morinville led the charge for a new public education option in 2011 after complaining that the only school in their region was Catholic, leading to the Sturgeon school division and the town of Morinville creating a secular education program.

Nearly 32 per cent of Albertans have no religious affiliation, according to Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey.

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