JA, you did what you felt it was necessary to do. The principal gave you a bunch of mumbo jumbo - he KNOWS that there is no grey area. He was just hoping you wouldn't say flat out that you wanted the teacher to stop. You stood up for what you believe in and for the law as it is written and he doesn't want you to go to the superintendent. That is why the teacher is no longer doing it.
You know, it's not just about atheists. It's about children who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhists, etc.
I'm all for prayer in school. I really am. But in a parochial school or religious school that parents choose to send their kids to, partly in order to benefit from this. I loved when my kids got elementary school "Sunday School" every other day when they went to a private school overseas. For the kids who weren't Christian, their "Sunday School" was a study of world religions. And the Catholic kids got CDC classes. It was great.
But public school isn't the place for this. The separation of Church and State was instituted because of the reason our ancestors came here - because they were persecuted for their religion. They came so that they would no longer be persecuted. Schools paid for by the government are not supposed to push one religion. That's the whole point.
When I was in high school, I remember that we had morning meditations. Students would go in and read verses from the Bible or passages that were about biblical principles. Then one day a student read something from the Koran. That didn't sit well with the higher ups. I didn't find out what she said to them, but there were no longer ANY religious references during morning meditations. At the time, I wondered why they couldn't just have any religion's book accepted. Now I know that they realized that they had to go by the law. In this case, a student forced the discussion instead of a parent. But this was high school - not elementary.
In my earlier post on your other thread, I said that if every parent in the classroom was okay with it, it wouldn't bother me. I know that it's still not what the law says. And even if you are the only parent that it bothered, that's one parent too many.
Dawn