A former West Virginia public school student gave us permission to share her experience.
She attended public school from 1998 to 2011 and says the religious pressure was especially intense from roughly 2003 through 2011. She remembers everyone being handed pocket Bibles. In sixth grade, she says students were forced to learn the Lord’s Prayer for the basketball team.
She explained:
“If you didn’t participate, you weren’t allowed to play. It was held against us.”
She described feeling “uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable and pressured.”
Now, as an adult, she feels resentful.
🚨This is not simply a story about something that happened years ago. Religious pressure in public schools continues today.
We still hear from students, parents, educators, and former students about prayer connected to school activities, religious materials being distributed in schools, pressure to participate, and children being treated differently when they do not.
The methods may change ➡️The coercion does not.
“It was held against us.”
Shameful. When a child knows that refusing a religious exercise may cost them playing time, participation, acceptance, or belonging, that is not voluntary. It is not tradition. It is not harmless.
👉It is adults using their authority to pressure children into performing a religion.
And it is STILL happening.
No child should have to prove they are willing to perform Christianity (or any religion) before they are allowed to fully participate in a public school activity. What happened to her was not harmless. It was not “just how things were.” It was coercion, and the resentment she still carries is part of the damage.
🚩And while people keep insisting this problem is exaggerated, children are still being pressured, excluded, rewarded, or punished based on whether they go along with religion in public schools.
THAT is why these stories matter. Because this did not start with her generation—and it did not end with it.
What people are saying:
- Secular Education Association: Do you have a story like this?
If you experienced religious pressure, coercion, exclusion, or favoritism in a public school—whether it happened decades ago or is happening to you or your child today—we want to hear from you.
Share your story in the comments. If you’d rather remain anonymous, email us at contact@seculareducationassociation.org.
Every story helps show that this problem isn’t exaggerated, imagined, confined to the past, or limited to one region of the country or one type of state.
It is real. It is widespread. And something must be done.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association For my kid, it was prayer circles before games and cheer competitions. It was just expected that you would participate in order to play.
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