A facility plan created last year for St. Paul’s LEAP High School called for a “new prayer room and workroom” to be built as part of a larger, $5 million renovation.
Read about the school district’s ambitious construction plans here.
St. Paul Public Schools removed the “prayer room” reference after a Pioneer Press inquiry. The plan now describes the 374-square-foot space as “New Multi-purpose Rooms.”
Facilities director Tom Parent said the school district’s facility usage documents don’t have a category for prayer space.
“The assumption is that those activities can be accommodated in spaces that are used for different purposes throughout the day,” he said.
That’s historically been the case at LEAP, the school district’s alternative high school for recent immigrants.
According to a 2002 Pioneer Press article about growth in the city’s Somali population, Muslim students had converted a storeroom at LEAP into a prayer room.
Today, students who pray during the school day do so on the school’s stage, Principal Rose Santos said last month through district spokeswoman Toya Stewart Downey.
In addition to prayer, Stewart Downey said, the new room “will be used for tutoring, art projects, by community partners, by teachers who wish to take students in there for a lesson or project.”
Teresa Nelson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, said that’s the right approach. Schools can and should accommodate religious practice, she said, but must not favor one religion over another or establish some space for religious use alone.
The U.S. Constitution bars government from endorsing a particular religion or preventing a person from practicing religion.
“Where it becomes problematic is to say this room is only allowed to be used for prayer … as opposed to a room that is being used to accommodate religion but other things as well,” Nelson said.
Nelson said the ACLU in Minnesota hasn’t gone to court over Muslim prayer, but she occasionally fields complaints from people who accuse a governmental entity of establishing a prayer room for Muslims.
“Often, when we inquire further, no, it’s just a room where they are allowed to pray,” she said.
COLLEGE REMOVES MEDITATION ROOM
For years, atheist groups have gone to court to force the removal of Christian symbols, such as crucifixes and the Ten Commandments, from government buildings. In the last decade or so, U.S. schools and universities have faced backlash for accommodating Muslim students with prayer space or foot baths.
In 2007, the ACLU objected when a sex-segregated “meditation room” at Normandale Community College in Bloomington was being used exclusively for Muslim prayer.
Willie Johnson, faculty adviser for the Muslim Student Association at Normandale, said the room was dismantled in the wake of the controversy. Today, he said, students pray in “stairwells, bathrooms, wherever they can find a corner.”
Johnson said Muslim students would like a dedicated space to pray, even just a room with a partition, but the school has been leery about attracting more criticism.
“They wish they could have a space to do it because stairways aren’t the cleanest place to do it and bathrooms aren’t either,” he said.
Instructors, he said, at least have allowed students to arrive late to class or to leave early if they need to pray. Observant Muslims pray five times a day at specific times, including once during a typical school day, around lunchtime.
WISH LIST INCLUDES PRAYER RUGS
So, how did the St. Paul school district come to identify a “prayer room” on LEAP’s facility plan? It started with a focus group of students, educators and others at the school — the same process undertaken at dozens of other schools.
Parent, the facilities director, said “prayer room and workroom” conveyed “a meaningful description of use that reflects input from the staff and students at LEAP that participated in the (Facilities Master Plan) workshops. Also, defining the space in question was also in response to how to utilize a smaller space left over from the creation of a new elevator,” he said.
LEAP’s updated facility plan indicates the group requested “fire proof prayer rugs” among other concerns, such as nicer restrooms and a larger cafeteria.
Nelson said that from a legal perspective, it “would be a little more problematic” if the district were to invest in articles to facilitate prayer.
Stewart Downey said the school district will not buy prayer rugs for students. Students are free to bring their own from home.
In general, she said, St. Paul students are permitted to pray in various unoccupied spaces, so long as it does not “greatly impact their academics and/or study time.”
In 2005, before she became superintendent, Valeria Silva co-authored a school district guide on English Language Learner students that included a section on Islam. It said that during Ramadan, “It is suggested that schools should support pupils who are fasting and provide alternative lunchtime arrangements in school. This might include a room for prayer or for resting.”
The school board will discuss Tuesday which schools will be renovated in the next six years. According to a draft of that plan, LEAP is not among the schools on the list.