West Marion Elementary School in Marion, North Carolina, is at the
center of controversy after educators ordered a six-year-old girl to
remove the word “God” from a poem she was slated to deliver at a
Veteran’s Day event. The first grader intended to use the opportunity to
honor her two grandfathers who fought during the Vietnam War.
The contentious line that led the school to take action was, “He
prayed to God for peace, he prayed to God for strength” — clearly a
reference to her relatives’ personal, wartime invocations. After a
parent allegedly heard of the inclusion of a higher power, he or she
complained. The school, apparently working diligently to balance church
versus state concerns, then decided to tell the child to remove the
line.
“The discussion [about the poem] occurred between myself, the
principal and the assistant principal at West Marion,” Superintendent
Gerri Martin told McDowell News.
“We wanted to make sure we were upholding the school district’s
responsibility of separation of church and state from the Establishment
Clause.”
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