**With UPDATE!*PDX's Rigler Public Grade School Provides Students With Bibles, Gives Kids Special Chapel in School to Pray During Math Class

**With UPDATE!*PDX’s Rigler Public Grade School Provides Students With Bibles, Gives Kids Special Chapel in School to Pray During Math Class

December 27, 2010

(UPDATE BELOW) Oh, wait, I’m sorry, I got it all wrong. Whoops. Dang I knew I messed something up. Wrong religion. Nothing to see here. Go about your business.

For English Speakers: Photo Retakes, Conferences and Prayer Rugs Available

Muslim students at Portland’s Rigler Elementary School are given their own school provided prayer room, prayer rugs, helpfully stored in the prayer room by the school, and let out of class five times a day to pray to Allah. Did I mention this is during school hours? School officials AND the PPS spokesman confirmed before I went on the air with this earlier this month.

This was first reported to us by the relative of a teacher at the school who called to the show thinking it odd that schools in Portland who don’t allow creche scenes and can’t bring themselves to call it a “Christmas” tree actually provide the prayer implements for the mostly Somalian Muslims at Rigler Elementary. Apparently that whole prayer in public school being unconstitutional thing applies only to Christians.

The school stores the Muslim prayer rugs for the students in a special room and they roll them all out for the kids five times a day.

Government schools are required to accommodate religious beliefs of students to a point, but this is beyond the pale. LDS families, for instance, are allowed to excuse their children for religious instruction during school but decamp to another building to provide it. Christian prayer groups have to meet off school time if they can meet at all at a school. The same goes for any other religion except Islam at this and other schools in Portland.

In SW Portland, near the Portland Islamic Center, students are allowed to leave school–as accused terrorist Mo Mo used to–and go to the Mosque to pray five times a day. This father wrote in to describe how that constant interruption takes away learning time from other students:

Victoria,

My son attends high school in SW Portland. He said that a number of his classes are disrupted by a group of Muslims who are brought late to class by a school administrator after they have completed their prayers. The class comes to a halt while the kids come in and the administrator apologizes for interrupting the class.

Ken Klukowski, the head of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Christian based Family Research Council, to me about this Rigler Elementary issue recently on the program (Click to listen).

Klukowski says case law regarding Muslim prayer and other considerations hasn’t caught up with the real world on this issue but says this situation is, “completely inconsistent with how federal courts have treated other religious groups especially Christian.” Not only can you not have Christian prayer in school but you can’t even have a moment of silence because it was “intended to help facilitate prayer”– a violation of the establishment clause according to a Supreme Court decision.

He believes cases like this and others involving special accommodations for Muslim students, for instance separate foot washing sinks in school, need to have a full, frank judicial reconsideration to put all religions on the same footing. He believes if these students were Christian or Orthodox Jew they would not be given a separate room in which to pray during school hours.

The Muslim faith is treated with much more respect in schools than Christianity. Who can forget the Massachusetts elementary school children taken to a mosque? Remember? The boys were separated from the girls and the boys were “allowed” to pray to Allah.

Since this original post was made weeks ago the spokesman for PPS says never confirmed the story. Then he sent a message confirming the story. Check the Comments section as well. Here’s a post made on 1/18/11. Please read on:

January 18, 2011

Zero’s “Politifact” Goes After Claims About Rigler Elementary

Let’s go back to the beginning. We received a phone call at the program on KPAM 860 from the relative of a Rigler teacher who claimed that, unlike any other children of faith, Muslim kids were allowed to use school facilities to pray as often as they wished (Muslim adherents can pray up to five times per day) and had their gear stored at school in a room to accommodate their needs when they wanted to pray.

We checked it out and found out from a school official it was true. My producer contacted Matt Shelby, the spokesman for Portland Public Schools, whom I was told was checking into it but said that of course they did make accommodations for children of faith. So it was a half confirmation, if you will. (here’s the original post complete with his comments) Shelby has now confirmed that children have used the accommodations before but he claims it’s been a long time. He’s attempting to suggest that I “LIED” about the situation at Rigler. That is NOT true. I did not lie. I may have conflated his “checking it out” with the other confirmations but it’s not a lie–intentional or otherwise. In fact his subsequent email/comment on the blog (which was held up because, a) it awaited moderation, b) while I checked out his claim) actually CONFIRMS the accommodation at Rigler.

Here’s Matt’s email/comment to the blog:

    Victoria,
    The reader board in Spanish advertises: days with no school in November, Parent Teacher conferences and Book Fair.
    Rigler School does not have any students that pray as part of their school day. This includes, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Mormons and other groups mentioned in the article.
    Consequently, the school does not have any space or equipment devoted to any type of religious practice at school
    Four years ago, Rigler did have two brothers who asked permission to pray during their lunch during Ramadan. The school did give them a quiet space to use; they missed no instructional time to do so and only prayed once a day.
    Those are the facts.
    Remind me when you or Eric spoke to me about this. I don’t recall.
    Matt Shelby
    PPS Communications

When Matt refers to the reader board at Rigler he’s referring to a reader board in front of the school which is all in Spanish. I translated the reader board. I was being sarcastic and engaging in what we call satire when I said in the caption:

I actually know a little Spanish, hence I actually read most of it right. The “prayer rug” reference was satire. I figured I’m not the only person who knows a little Spanish and that most people would know it was a joke.

Now let’s get to the part where Shelby says the school has no students who pray as part of their day,

“This includes, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Mormons and other groups mentioned in the article.”

Since children of other faiths don’t require separate places to pray during the day and Muslims are the only adherents who pray as many as five times a day, his reference to other religions is immaterial. People of other faiths don’t have to go to another room–provided by the school by the way–and pray, therefore this is a moot point.

And here’s where we get to it. Shelby confirms that the district has provided a spot at the school to pray.

Four years ago, Rigler did have two brothers who asked permission to pray during their lunch during Ramadan. The school did give them a quiet space to use; they missed no instructional time to do so and only prayed once a day.

The people we spoke to about it confirmed these things but not when. That Shelby’s example happened four years ago is interesting but not material. That the school provided the space to pray is the material point. That they prayed only during Ramadan is helpful but not material. The fact that they prayed “once a day” is of no material value.

What is material is this: The school district provided a place for children of one religion to pray during school hours. My understanding is the school actually stored the equipment (prayer rugs etc) to help them do it. Matt doesn’t take up this concern.

Personally, I think there should be more prayer in school. I believe that this same accommodation would NOT occur for children of other faiths. Indeed, the ACLU and other groups have seen to that. The dockets of many courts are peppered with cases fighting just such unequal treatment.
Perhaps it is this last point that Shelby is most concerned about. We spoke on the program with an expert in establishment clause cases using the information we were given by the folks who confirmed this.
Ken Klukowski is quoted on the original blog post:

Klukowski says case law regarding Muslim prayer and other considerations hasn’t caught up with the real world on this issue but says this situation is, “completely inconsistent with how federal courts have treated other religious groups especially Christian.” Not only can you not have Christian prayer in school but you can’t even have a moment of silence because it was “intended to help facilitate prayer”– a violation of the establishment clause according to a Supreme Court decision.

He believes cases like this and others involving special accommodations for Muslim students, for instance separate foot washing sinks in school, need to have a full, frank judicial reconsideration to put all religions on the same footing. He believes if these students were Christian or Orthodox Jew they would not be given a separate room in which to pray during school hours.

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com