Percy Bysshe Shelley Student Activist Award — Natalie Laymon

Natalie Laymon earned FFRF’s Percy Bysshe Shelley Student Activist Award (established by FFRF Member Michael Meek) of $1,000 for speaking out at a school board meeting over unconstitutional prayers by a coach at her high school.

By Natalie Laymon

Recently, my school was contacted by the Freedom From Religion Foundation addressing a complaint from a student who was uncomfortable about a coach leading prayer before a cross-country meet. The superintendent, new to the school district, provided some communication to the district with the reminder of an existing school policy that staff are not allowed to lead prayer. In addition, he added it as an agenda item to the already scheduled staff workday. He was not implementing a new rule, he was simply upholding what was already there.

I have lived in the same small town my whole life and am very aware of the strong faithful beliefs that many here have. It was no surprise that many did not receive the news very well. Within 24 hours of the communication, people already had T-shirts made and wore them to the football game with the school’s logo and text that read “Put me in coach, I’ll pray.” The excitement about the situation only continued to increase throughout the weekend as news spread, and talk continued both around town and online. A petition was even started that got over 1,000 signatures and raised more than $1,000.

My mom and I had talked about the topic many times and we were both aware that it would be addressed at an already scheduled school board meeting. Initially, I didn’t feel the need to attend, especially considering that it conflicted with drumline practice. However, during school, I found out that another student, the creator of the petition, was going to be speaking at the meeting that evening. Gathering support for her petition with QR codes all over school, I knew, “If she can speak, I can, too.”

After school, we quickly researched the rules regarding public speakers at the board meeting, and I was going to be allotted three minutes. I quickly wrote my speech, edited it, went to drumline for a brief time and sent a few more video thoughts for my mom to add before she printed it out.

When I arrived at my old elementary school, knowing that I was going to speak out about something I believed in so deeply, but also knew that the majority of my town did not agree with, it was terrifying. As I walked in, I saw my mom and many of her friends who knew me well, and were all there to support me. While there were hundreds of people who commented online and around the community, there were only five us signed up to speak — myself and one other adult in support of the superintendent and policy, and another student, an alumnus and another adult who disagreed.

My speech focused on the existence of the policy, the reaction from it and what I believe we should do going forward. The policy didn’t say that kids couldn’t lead prayer, it only focused on paid staff, who are government employees and hold positions of authority affecting kids’ playing time. If kids feel passionately about this topic or anything else, I wanted to encourage them to focus on the opportunity it gave them to speak up about something they cared about, rather than just getting upset and complaining without taking action.

In our community, I have felt judged and treated poorly because my views are different than most who live here. In this case, the topic happened to be religion, but, oftentimes, it doesn’t matter what the issue is — if you have a view that is different from the majority, people are mean. They say very negative things, treat people unfairly and act like it doesn’t exist. Here, you are expected to fit in or keep quiet. If you think differently, they think you’re wrong.

Opinions aren’t about right versus wrong, they should be thought out and discussed in a calm, mature, meaningful way. The school board meeting gave us an opportunity to do just that.

After my speech, I got a lot of compliments and felt like I had done what I needed to do. The news station that was present focused on me and the other student in its story later that night. If I had not chosen to speak up, the public reaction would have been skewed.

In the days that followed, the online commenters suggested that I had an underdeveloped teenage brain and lack of life experiences. There were a lot of online comments, but we tried not to read most of them. However, it was incredible to also get a lot of positive feedback at school, even from the superintendent, and online from people who I have not interacted with before who were encouraging and congratulated me on my courage.

Natalie is a junior at Lake Local High School in Uniontown, Ohio. “At school, I am involved in marching and band, and am a member of our speech and debate team and have been in many musical theater productions,” she writes. “Over the last two years, I have been fortunate enough to be in the Girl Scout Media Girl program, where we can be selected for radio, TV and news spots and available for public speaking events.”