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Frederick County panel advances new religious-expression policy, flags staff-participation language for legal review
Summary
The policy committee advanced proposed edits to Policy 4-27 to clarify student religious expression, guest-speaker rules and distribution of religious texts; board members asked staff to clarify or remove wording that could permit school employees to 'participate' in student religious activities on school grounds if that conflicts with court precedent.
The Frederick County Board of Education—s policy committee voted to advance revisions to Policy 4-27, the school system—s religious-expression policy, to the full board for a first reading while asking staff to review and clarify language about staff participation in student religious activities. Staff said the edits add legal definitions (government speech, personal time, private speech), align policy language with recent court decisions, and create clearer implementation steps for guest speakers, instructional materials and facility use.
The proposed policy reframes the section on student prayer and religious discussion to emphasize…
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