CHINO HILLS >> Almost two months after the Chino Valley Unified school board was ordered to cut out the heavy use of prayer during meetings, the same federal judge is ordering four board members to pay for the legal fees of the winning side.

On Feb. 18, U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal ordered the board to end its years-long tradition of “reciting prayers, Bible readings and proselytizing at board meetings.” The school board has been opening its meetings with religious invocations since November 2013. On March 7, the board voted to hire the Murrieta-based law firm Tyler & Bursch to handle their appeal.

In the meantime, Bernal wants the three board members leading the spiritual charge in the district to pay the legal fees of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Wisconsin-based group that sued the district over the prayer issue, along with anonymous district staff, students and community members.

Bernal ordered board president Andrew Cruz and board members James Na and Sylvio Orzco Thursday to pay a total of $202,971.70 to the Freedom From Religion Foundation for their attorney’s fees and other costs.

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4, including the late Antonin Scalia, that local officials may open public meetings with prayers — even explicitly Christian ones — so long as the government agency does not discriminate against minority faiths when choosing who may offer a prayer and the prayer does not coerce participation from nonbelievers.

But the Chino Valley school board appears to have gone beyond what Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinion in Town of Greece v. Galloway, said was permissible for government prayer.

“In the town of Greece, (New York), the prayer is delivered during the ceremonial portion of the town’s meeting,” Kennedy’s opinion reads in part. “Board members are not engaged in policymaking at this time, but in more general functions, such as swearing in new police officers, inducting high school athletes into the town hall of fame, and presenting proclamations to volunteers, civic groups, and senior citizens. It is a moment for town leaders to recognize the achievements of their constituents and the aspects of community life that are worth celebrating.”

In their November 2014 suit against the district, lawyers for the Freedom From Religion Foundation argued that Na “often injects religion into his comments” at the ends of meetings and Cruz regularly closed meetings with a Bible reading, in addition to the prayers used to open meetings.

The four members of the school board that Bernal enjoined from “conducting, permitting or otherwise endorsing school-sponsored prayer in board meetings” weren’t just opening the meeting with a prayer — something that government agencies around San Bernardino County do — but often repeatedly stopped meetings to make long expressions of their faith, according to regular meeting attendees.

In one case, Na reportedly mentioned or discussed Jesus 10 times in one board meeting. The Freedom From Religion Foundation argument also noted that students are not just encouraged to attend — the board even includes a student member — but are often required to, including students whose discipline cases the board is discussing behind-closed-doors portions of the meetings.