On September 8, during the Religious Liberty Commission’s hearing at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump announced upcoming guidance from the Department of Education regarding prayer in public schools. He said, “I am pleased to announce this morning that the Department of Education will soon issue new guidance protecting the right to prayer in our public schools and its total protection.”
Leftists have criticized Trump’s support of prayer in schools and further suggested that Republican states inappropriately favor Christian teachings. But in Fairfax County Public Schools, the largest district in Virginia, if local leaders were prioritizing any religion, it’s Islam.
On September 15, parents of five minors attending a Fairfax County public high school met in private to discuss their children’s exposure, and in a few cases, conversions, to Islam. One of the parents shared with IW Features that the conversion journey began with designated prayer time in their public school. The district’s Regulation 1502 states: “Each school and office within the district shall provide at least one meditation and silent reflection space that is easily accessible and adequately accommodates the needs of students and staff…Supervision, as available, will be provided in the meditation and silent reflection space.”
One of the students forged a prayer pass in order not to raise the parents’ suspicion about a burgeoning interest in Islam. Another student’s parent, who attended the September 15 meeting, quickly signed her child’s prayer pass without reading it, believing it was just another standard school form.
A parent told IW Features that during these prayer periods, Muslim students at the school lead the others in prayer and then deliver lectures from the Quran. In other words, the prayer time during school hours was neither silent nor supervised – a task that would be especially difficult for principals with limited resources.
A parent told IW Features that these prayer room moments at school were accompanied by longer conversations and subsequent student trips to a local mosque without parental knowledge or consent. That parent learned about the child’s interest in Islam and watched a video shared in a Snapchat group of the minor reciting the Shahada – the Islamic conversion prayer stating that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is his messenger – with an adult imam at the mosque.
The minor’s parents were understandably upset. Their child was raised Christian and converted in private under persuasion from peers and assistance from adults, without parental awareness or consent. The child’s parent told IW Features, “It’s a punch in the gut. How did this happen? My child, who’s a highly intelligent person, was manipulated.”
The parent also shared an objection to the district’s policy regarding prayer rooms with IW Features. The parent said, “I believe everyone has the right to practice their own religion, but there’s a time and a place. I want my children to be critical, free thinkers who hold their own opinions – not manipulated by peers in prayer rooms at school and adults at a mosque.”
IW Features contacted Fairfax County Public Schools’ media relations office for comment. The email says, “In a Fairfax County high school…there are several minor students who have gone to prayer rooms during school hours and subsequently converted to Islam without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Do you think unsupervised prayer rooms during school hours (as specified in Regulation 1502) are an appropriate use of public schools’ resources?”
The district’s media relations office has not responded.
Fairfax County Public Schools’ political and institutional context arguably facilitated the environment for these students to convert to Islam. The Fairfax County School Board is composed of 12 Democrat-endorsed members. Notably, in November 2019, voters elected at-large member Abrar Omeish, a then 24-year-old Muslim fundamentalist. During her single term on the board that concluded at the end of 2023, the district implemented prayer spaces in schools during Ramadan in 2022, decoupled spring break from Easter, and introduced instruction on Ramadan as a social-emotional learning lesson.
At a fundraising event for American Muslims for Palestine on Sept. 7, 2019, Omeish delivered a stump speech where she made her motives for public schools transparent. She said, “These are conversations that start in the classrooms that our children begin attending. These are the conversations in the history textbooks that they’re reading, that they’re learning from their world history teacher every day… From the classroom, the assumptions were made, the facts were told in a particular way. So, I’m running for school board, and there are so many different reasons, and so many things that impact the Muslim community in relation to this.”
Religion aside, Omeish, who did not have children during her time on the school board, was not a typical school board member. She was a young activist who admittedly ran to influence the hearts and minds of children in their public schools on matters that should be left to the parents. And like her Democrat-endorsed colleagues on the board, she introduced and supported policies to that end.
Many of these policies and practices have an anti-Christian bias, such as the board’s stated obsession with “decoupling” spring break from Easter. Such biases have helped create an educational environment in which adults at Fairfax County’s public schools make anti-Christian statements.
Earlier this month, for example, a parent told IW Features that a Fairfax County high school teacher lecturing his students about the Reformation allegedly told his class on two occasions that he wasn’t sure why Catholics and Protestants fought in Europe because they were all worshipping the same “bearded hippie.”
Meanwhile, teachers in the district are not known to disparage other religious figures as they do Jesus Christ—nor should they.
When parents send their children to public schools, they shouldn’t need to worry about their school district intentionally or unintentionally facilitating the religious conversion of their children. The parent who is struggling with his child’s recent conversion to Islam said, “I have always felt very close to my child and I still feel we are close. However, I now feel like another adult has wedged himself between us and created a divide. My relationship with my child hasn’t changed, but it feels different.”
Without a doubt, people should be absolutely free to practice their religion and pray as they wish. But politicians must tread lightly when they introduce policies to encourage religious practices in public schools. Whether school board members implement prayer rooms at the local level or Trump introduces prayer in schools at the national level, such policies can have unintended consequences that violate parental rights.
