Evanston-Skokie School District 65 will ignore new legislation mandating a moment of silence in Illinois public schools after trying unsuccessfully to seek a waiver that would free the district from following the law, board members said.

After discussing it Monday night, five of the school board's seven members agreed the board should not force teachers in the district's 16 elementary and middle schools to observe the law, they said.

"We have no intention of either prohibiting or forcing compliance," said board member Katie Bailey.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-momentnov08,1,5158992.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

Good for them!

As silly as the "moment of silence" is, I don't approve of school boards choosing which laws they will or will not follow.

At the start of my senior year in high school the district decided we would have a 'moment of silence' at the beginning of each day. This was, of course, an obvious attempt to circumvent restrictions on school prayer and was opposed by the majority of students and teachers. On the first day of school my home room teacher (Western Civ.) sat us all down and told us we could meditate during the 'moment of silence' by intoning the 'ohmmm' mantra. So we did, thinking it was great fun. What was even more fun was the next day when the adjoining classes also chimed in. The day after that it was half the school and by the end of the week everyone was doing it.

Ha ha!! The 'moment of silence' was cancelled by the following monday.

:)

I'd like to think state legislators would have something better to do then to pass silly laws mandating a moment of silence.

I'd like to think state legislators would have something better to do then to pass silly laws mandating a moment of silence.
They do. The Regional Transit Authority has needed a long-term funding solution for two decades now. In the course of one year, the CTA (along with Metra and Pace) have proposed three "doomsday" service cuts. The first two got last-minute, temporary bailouts from Governor Helmet Hair. The third is scheduled for January. Springfield has done absolutely dick to get a long-term funding solution off the ground. Though, to be fair, Governor Helmet Hair is more to blame than the legislature. (And, also to be fair, Helmet Hair did veto the moment of silence bill.) Without mass transit, there is no Chicago. Without Chicago, there's nothing to distinguish Illinois from other backwater states like Iowa or Nebraska. I've written two letters to the governor and my state senator/representative. I may write a third to these people if we keep having these doomsdays. It's absolutely ridiculous. The state government is more interested in political posturing than they are getting things done. It's a sickening state of affairs, to be perfectly honest.

The state government is more interested in political posturing than they are getting things done. It's a sickening state of affairs, to be perfectly honest.

Sounds quite like our U.S. Congress.