The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
A proposed bill would require Ohio school districts to have a moment of silence every day.
Ohio state Reps. Gary Click, R-Vickery, and Eric Synenberg, D-Beachwood, gave sponsor testimony on House Bill 187 Tuesday during the House Education Committee.
State law currently allows teachers to have a moment of silence in the classroom, so this bill would change one word in the law — from may to shall, creating a new mandate. The bill leaves the implementation up to the teacher.
“This bill does not ask for much and is extremely non-prescriptive,” Click said in his sponsor testimony. “It does not say where, when, or how long. It just says simply a moment. … Mindfulness is becoming a lost art in the hustle and bustle of modern society and is a discipline worth teaching.”
Students are constantly being bombarded with technology, Synenberg said.
“While we as lawmakers can’t solve every mental health challenge students face, we do have the ability to create a space for a brief opportunity of peace and quiet,” he said.
Students have the right to leave the classroom if they do not wish to participate in the moment of silence under the bill, but Synenberg said the legislation can’t prevent a student who chooses not to participate from getting bullied or made fun of.
“That will have to be dealt with on an individual basis by the teachers (and) administration at school,” he said. “Hopefully, students are not going to do that. I’m sure it could happen, but we unfortunately can’t prevent that.”
Lawmakers on the committee had a lively discussion weighing the pros and cons of the bill.
“We’ve been having a lot of discussion in the committee so far about how to roll back some of the mandates and regulations in our schools, and obviously this one says shall, as opposed to may,” Education Committee Chair Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, R-Ashtabula, said. “So how do you propose that fits into the context of trying to be less burdensome and not adding costs to the local districts?”
Click responded by saying there would be no cost to this bill.
“This could be defined as a mandate,” Synenberg said. “It is sort of an anti-mandate mandate. So it’s do this, but really what we are having you do is for a small part of the day telling you don’t have to teach, you don’t have to instruct, you don’t have to be disciplining students. You’ll just be present with your students for that time.”
State Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio, D-Gahanna, asked what currently prevents a school from having a daily moment of silence?
“There’s nothing that prevents them,” Click said. “And yet, for some reason, not everyone does, and we just think it would be a good practice to implement across the state in every school.”
State Rep. Sean Patrick Brennan, D-Parma, said he would occasionally do a moment of silence in his classroom.
“In today’s day and age — with the mental health crisis that we have on our hands — I think it’s wise,” he said.
Brennan asked the lawmakers how having a daily moment of silence could help students foster mindfulness, empathy, and gratitude.
“I don’t know if our young people are consistently taught the value of just being still,” Click said. “I think that is a discipline that is worth teaching, and some teachers might want to expand on that and teach their students how to meditate.”
Ohio’s new religious release time law — which passed during the last General Assembly — also changed one word in the law from may to shall, requiring school districts to come up with a religious release time policy. Click sponsored a religious release time bill and language from that bill was eventually added to another education bill that was later signed into law by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine earlier this year.
