Left without a prayer

Left without a prayer
No speech by top student after being told to strike out religion

Bayonne High School valedictorian Jeremy Jerschina had wanted to give a heartfelt speech at his graduation ceremony on Wednesday.

A religious young man bound for the Christian school Calvin College in Michigan this fall, 18-year-old Jerschina said that to speak from the heart as he addressed his graduating class, he had to speak to God as well.

But Principal Richard Baccarella and the Bayonne Board of Education would not let him speak if he included a prayer - so he didn't speak at all.

With his mother Bozena looking on as the pair sat in the living room of their West 25th Street home yesterday, Jerschina described his exchanges with Baccarella and Superintendent of Schools Patricia McGeehan, in which they asked him to remove the prayer from his speech.

He said the day before the ceremony they even asked one of his former teachers to help him rewrite the speech in a way that would satisfy the school board, although they could not reach a compromise.

On graduation day, Jerschina said, Baccarella told him that if he decided to give the speech without the prayer, he could signal the principal as he sat on stage to be recognized as valedictorian and that Baccarella would give him time to speak. But, Jerschina said, that put him in a position where he had to "either rip out my beliefs or stay silent."

"God and Christ are the reason I did how I did in high school, and are what I stand for most," Jerschina said. "The principal and superintendent said I could do the speech if I left the prayer out, and I told them that I'd rather do the whole thing or not at all."

In a statement released yesterday, McGeehan said the school district would have been breaking the law had it allowed Jerschina to speak.

"While the Bayonne school district has the utmost respect for the student's conviction, the Bayonne school district must follow the law and must sometimes make very difficult decisions to insure that it meets its legal obligations," said the statement.

Ayesha Khan, legal director for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, agreed.

"Because it is a school graduation ceremony and a school facility, completely facilitated by the school, all that comes together to leave the audience with the impression that everything that happens in the graduation, the school stands behind," she said yesterday.

Khan added that since Jerschina was speaking as the school valedictorian, and since the Bayonne school board's policy is to approve student speeches before they are given, Jerschina's prayer would be considered as presented on the school's behalf - violating the Constitutional principal of the separation of church and state.

Jerschina's mother, Bozena, who moved to the United States from Poland in 1989, cited another right guaranteed in the Constitution - the freedom of speech.

"This is supposed to be a free country with freedom of speech," she said. "But instead there is censorship."