Reply to Prayer in secular daycare?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If this is a private organization, they have a right to define “secular” as they please.  You have a right to take your child out.  If you have a contract, you possibly could break it over this.  They are, however, under no obligation to obey your definition of “secular”.  You can try to negotiate with them (e.g., reword the prayer), but they are under no obligation to accede to your demands.[/quote]

I agree.

OP, you say that this daycare is "secular."   What makes you say that?   Have they actually called themselves "secular?"   Is this one of the large chains (Kindercare, Minnieland, etc.?)  Do you know if this is just occurring in your child's classroom (perhaps the teacher has taken it upon herself to teach the children about her religion?)  
"[/quote]

I believe OP said that she wasn't sure if it was just her classroom or the whole center.  But if the teacher took it upon herself to teach about religion (or more accurately to conduct denominational prayers), I would think that most center directors would  not think this was appropriate.

A center in DC almost certainly has families from many different religious backgrounds and many of those families would not appreciate -- and would not expect in a non-denominational center -- religious prayers being conducted at the behest of a particular teacher.

At our center, they take a very secular approach to the holiday season -- ie the kids will draw tsnowmen, trees, dreidels and the like -- but there is real mention of religion.  [/quote]

Dreidels are religious. Latkes and gelt are not.[/quote]

Dreidels are a symbol of the holiday (just like trees for Christmas) but they aren't really religious -- certainly nothing like having a denominational prayer.

The only thing that could even remotely be considered religious on a dreidel is that the 4 Hebrew letters on the dreidel are an acronym for a "great miracle happened here," a reference to the Hanukah story.  But, plenty of "dreidels" don't even have the letters on them -- at that point, it is nothing more than a spinning top which has no religious significance at all.  Even if the spinning tops the preschoolers are coloring have the Hebrew letters, it's not like the teachers are using them to tell the Hanukah story. And kids at that age barely know their English letters, they almost certainly won't know the Hebrew letters and certainly won't know what it means.

But to the extent a preschool decided that -- in order to remain secular -- they wanted to avoid dreidels and instead just use latkes/gelt to symbolize Hanukah, that's ok by me.[/quote]

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