If Sturgeon Heights School resumes its morning recitation of the Lord’s Prayer it will be an anomaly.
“Generally speaking the Lord’s Prayer is not recited in St. Albert Protestant schools, though it may be recited in the Logos programs at Leo Nickerson and at Elmer S. Gish,” said Joan Trettler, Superintendent for St. Albert Protestant School Board, which is the city’s separate school board.
The only Edmonton public schools where the Lord’s Prayer is recited are Edmonton Christian schools.
“Edmonton Christian North East and Edmonton Christian West would have the Lord’s Prayer recitation at special assemblies, but not daily,” said Communications spokesperson Dajana Fabjanovich.
Last week, five of the seven Sturgeon School Division trustees approved changes to the policy regarding the Lord’s Prayer. Voting against the motion were Trustee Tracy Nowak, who represents Namao/Guthrie schools and Brent Gray, who represents Redwater/Ochre Park.
“The policy does not direct that the Lord’s Prayer be recited. It simply allows, if there is enough parental interest, that the school board may prescribe the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer,” said Sturgeon School Division Superintendent Michelle Dick.
The procedure to be followed now includes more discussion among the parents of children attending Sturgeon Heights School followed by a report to the principal and another meeting with the school board.
The Lord’s Prayer has not been recited this school year in Sturgeon Heights, which is located on Hogan Road, within the City of St. Albert boundaries, but maintains its traditional Sturgeon Public School Division affiliation.
Sandra Shelemey, whose son attends junior high classes at Sturgeon Heights hopes the prayer will be recited again on a regular basis.
“It has to go to the principal and we have to come up with an easy, smooth, workable solution,” Shelemey said, adding that parents will form a committee in the next week.
“I hope that parents whose wish was that the prayer should not be said will join that committee,” she said, adding that transportation, especially busing issues, were a concern for many parents whose children attend the school.
Shelemey lives west of St. Albert, in Sturgeon County. She works in St. Albert, and could drive her children in to attend Greater St. Albert Catholic schools. But busing is only paid within the county. Other transportation costs outside the area where the student lives are the parents’ responsibility.
“Some people in the county don’t have any way to transport their children to St. Albert to a Catholic or Christian school. It’s not right, because they love the school and like their children to have the option of prayer, but because they live outside the city that option is not available to them,” Shelemey said.
Luke Fevin, a parent on the opposite side of the debate, does not want his two elementary aged daughters to recite the Lord’s Prayer. He argues that the new Sturgeon School Division policies are contradictory.
“The policy says that schools have to be caring, respectful and safe and inclusive and 100-per-cent tolerant of diversity. To allow Christian prayer and no other prayer is not consistent with being tolerant or inclusive,” he argued.
“I feel for everyone here. I feel for the teachers. I feel for the board. I feel for the students and I feel for the parents on both sides, but if the law is conflicting, then the laws need to be changed.”
