This sounds like a screwup where everything worked out the way it was supposed to. It’s fine for a religious group to host an event during non-instructional time just like any other group. It was voluntary. I imagine that environmental and social justice groups could do the same. A couple of teachers screwed up and thought it was mandatory. Students protested. Administration is taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. America.

If anything, it shows just how much fluffy free time there is in a school schedule.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — Between calculus and European history classes at a West Virginia public high school, 16-year-old Cameron Mays and his classmates were told by their teacher to go to an evangelical Christian revival assembly.

 

When students arrived at the event in the school’s auditorium, they were instructed to close their eyes and raise their arms in prayer, Mays said. The teens were asked to give their lives over to Jesus to find purpose and salvation. Those who did not follow the Bible would go to hell when they died, they were told.

 

[…]

 

More than 1,000 students attend Huntington High. The mini revival took place last week during COMPASS, a daily, “noninstructional” break in the schedule during which students can study for tests, work on college prep or listen to guest speakers, said Cabell County Schools spokesperson Jedd Flowers.

 

Flowers said the event was voluntary, organized by the school’s chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He said there was supposed to be a signup sheet for students, but two teachers mistakenly brought their entire class.

 

“It’s unfortunate that it happened,” Flowers said. “We don’t believe it will ever happen again.”