Tomorrow at public schools around the country, students will participate in the annual "See You At the Pole" event. SYATP involves students' gathering at their school flagpoles before classes begin to pray for their leaders, schools, and families. According to the press release for this year's event, over 2 million teenagers participated in last year's programs. This year's theme is "PRAY: call 2 me".
Meanwhile, in Denver, Colorado, a federal judge refused to order a Pueblo, Colorado high school principal to show a video announcing the SYATP rally at his school. According to today's Pueblo Chieftan, a student group called the Fellowship of Christian Bulldogs asked for the 73-second video to be shown during normal school announcements over closed-circuit television. The principal refused because the video called for students to "pray for your school, family, nation and world." The principal, Miguel Elias insisted that references in the video to "prayer" be changed to "event", in order to avoid the school promoting prayer. The student leader of SYATP refused, saying that students who would show up an hour before school for the rally might be offended, not knowing the event was about prayer. However, U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock agreed that the principal's position was reasonable. He urged both parties to begin negotiations on how to announce next year's rally.
