Religion in public schools disputed in one of U.S.'s fastest-growing cities
The school superintendent's prayer during a mandatory meeting sparked tensions in McKinney, Texas.
Public school officials in one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities are being accused of violating the separation of church and state.
The controversy has been simmering in McKinney, Texas, once a tiny cotton-farming community, about 30 miles north of Dallas, since last summer when Rick McDaniel, superintendent of the McKinney Independent School District, prayed at a pulpit adorned with a Christian cross during a mandatory school employee meeting at a church.
Recently, under pressure from concerned parents, the 24,500-student school district decided to end a decade-plus practice of conducting high school commencement ceremonies at the same church, Prestonwood Baptist, a Southern Baptist megachurch in nearby Plano.
