Blog from the Capital

Minnesota Public Radio reports on a rift between a Wilmar Junior high School and a community of Somali parents concerned about their children's access to appropriate prayer time during the school day.

A few Somali parents in Willmar complained that the public schools weren't allowing their Muslim children to step out of class for daily prayer. Some didn't send their children to school last week in protest.

Today, school officials said they won't change their policy, which allows students to pray during lunch time and between classes.
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[Principal] Mark Miley... says at a meeting six years ago, Somali families agreed that their children could pray during lunch time and between periods.
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Miley says everyone at that meeting, including parents, agreed that stepping out during class to pray would be disruptive. He says he doesn't understand why it's an issue this year.

"When they say to me, you don't allow our children to pray, that's not true. They're provided a spot during non-instructional time," said Miley.

The timing of Muslim prayers is calculated based on the hours of sunlight each day, so the precise time of students' midday prayer, for example, will shift over the course of the year.