Two national advocacy groups sent letters to the Duval County School Board stating the prayers during board meetings may violate the Establishment Clause.<\/p>\n
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Prayers at the start of Duval County School Board meetings are sparking debate and drawing scrutiny from national advocacy groups who say the practice may violate the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit based in Madison, Wisconsin, sent a letter to the school board on March 13th after a community member reported that the meetings regularly begin with a prayer. The organization said the board\u2019s policy calls for an \u201cOpening Message or Thought of the Day,\u201d not an \u201cInvocation,\u201d which is often led by clergy or community members and frequently references Christianity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s reasonable for students and their families and taxpayers to want their school board to focus on actually doing their job and governing and not trying to inject their personal religion into school board meetings,\u201d said Sammi Lawrence, attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation.<\/p>\n
The letter cites federal court rulings that say sectarian prayer at school board meetings violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from favoring one religion or religion over non-religion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a public school board makes it very clear that they prefer religion and prefer people who are religious, and prefer people who believe in a certain religion, that is unconstitutionally coercive and that’s not neutral,\u201d Lawrence said.<\/p>\n
A similar letter was sent to the board on November 25, 2025, by American United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. Attorney Ian Smith sent this statement to First Coast News:<\/p>\n
\u201cIncorporating prayers or any other religious content into a public school board meeting is a clear violation of religious freedom. Duval County School Board’s first priority should be educating children and protecting their religious freedom. Duval County students, families and staff should not be forced to choose between remaining true to their personal religious beliefs and participating in the decision-making process of their own public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prayers in question have included statements such as: \u201cFather God, I lift up the students as well,\u201d and \u201cIn your son Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the practice has received local support. The Jacksonville Young Republicans released this statement in response:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a sad reflection on the state of modern discourse when extremist elements feel emboldened to attack prayer to God before legislative meetings. The recent tactics employed by progressive activist groups\u2014designed to disrupt, intimidate, and devalue the faith of so many citizens of Jacksonville\u2014are nothing short of a disgraceful display of intolerance masquerading as \u2018inclusion.\u2019 We are and will always be one nation under God.”<\/p>\n
The Freedom From Religion Foundation said it has not yet heard back from the school board but will give the district time to respond.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First Coast News reached out to the district and board chair, but offices are closed for spring break, and no response was available.<\/p>\n
Updates will be provided as the story develops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two national advocacy groups sent letters to the Duval County School Board stating the prayers during board meetings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-197357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}