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I am approaching a very indigo shade of blue in repeating this mantra but here goes again....

Have most/all ceremonies off school grounds and make them voluntary! The silly disputes that involve prom/graduation/Christmas come up every year because some malcontent has a gripe.

Christmas: Have the plays, concerts, whatever at a hall or a church. Atheist? Anti-religious bigot? Don't celebrate Christmas? Great - take two weeks off, read your Little Red Book, watch a Tom Cruise film Dec. 25 and see you Jan 2nd.

Prom: principals and teachers are not cops, bouncers, liquor control agents, event promoters or attorneys. They can't even teach Johnny to read, so why put them in charge of a huge social event? Move the prom to the Embassy Suites, give every student and his/her date a voucher for entry and hire a suitable venue, providing ample security and keep a lid on the rowdies by refusing entrance and/or exit as needed. If it's not the Anytown High School Prom and instead is just the Anytown Prom few teens will care - it's the social event they are interested in.

Graduation: this is the stickiest one since it relates directly to education but many high schools have Baccalaureate religious services the week prior to graduation. A huge turnout by all non-objectors would be the ideal response to Heather Hijab and she could do nothing about it.

The point is that school boards and administrations are full of control freaks and modern schools are full of smartass jailhouse lawyers who aren't interested in civil rights or religion, just in creating more distractions from the actual process of learning by kicking up a fuss. Not a good combination.

Move the battle wholesale to another playing field and you can legally, morally and ethically ostracize the refuseniks. After all, they want to be independent, don't they? Here's their golden opportunity to be REALLY self-reliant and put an end to these look-at-me annoyances.