Walk through the wooden door into the secluded, carpeted room with holy books and prayer mats, and it’s hard to believe you’re in a school.

But this is the beginning of a new phase for public and Catholic schools where prayer rooms could become commonplace.

Under a provincewide policy, school boards must be more inclusive and accommodate different faiths during the school day.

This could mean a private place for Muslim students who pray five times a day and for students who are fasting, a modified gym class and a separate room for them so they don’t have to watch their peers eat lunch.

Atieh Noori, a 27-year-old Muslim student at St. Louis Adult Learning and Continuing Education Centre in downtown Kitchener, uses the prayer room each day at lunchtime to say her midday prayers.

After school, Noori doesn’t have time for prayer so she appreciates the space.

“It’s quiet and there is light and no one comes here to bother me,” said the Afghan-born Noori, who came to Canada in 2007 via Iran.

At St. Louis, the prayer room was set up about eight years ago to accommodate many of the English-as-a-second-language students who attend the school.

The newly adopted faith and accommodation policy states that each student has a right to follow his or her beliefs free from discrimination or harassment. Areas of reasonable accommodation include observance of major religious holy days and celebrations, prayers and rituals, dietary requirements and fasting, religious attire and participation in school curriculum and extracurricular activities.

“Someone’s faith is part of who they are. Accommodating them brings understanding and shows we respect them,” said public school trustee Cindy Watson.

Prayer rooms in area schools are rare. If Muslim students request a place to pray, they are often sent to the vice-principal’s office or given an empty classroom. And even requests are rare, say some secondary school principals.

At Catholic high schools, silent prayer is allowed in the school chapel, but Muslim students saying their prayers are prohibited from the chapel, said Jonathan Wright, a religious family life and equity consultant with the board.

An edict by Canadian bishops says only Catholic prayer is allowed in the presence of the Eucharist, Wright said.

Accommodating faith can be a delicate issue, particularly in a secular public school system. Some critics of the policy feel if the Lord’s Prayer isn’t recited in schools then why should other faiths be acknowledged?

Public school superintendent Peter Rubenschuh said a policy ensures standards are followed and everyone is treated fairly.

“Parents and students want to be heard and respected,” he said. “They want to feel validated and honoured.”

Rubenschuh said finding an appropriate space for students to pray does not mean putting them “in the mud room,” but finding a private space while at the same time supervising them.

Faith leaders say there is a clear distinction between accommodating a religion and proselytizing in the classroom.

“You can’t tell a Muslim student not to fast,” said Waterloo mother Idrisa Pandit. “They are not asking other people to pray with them.”

Interfaith Grand River, a coalition of local faith groups, doesn’t support pushing a religion on anyone. During the recent Gideon Bible controversy in which the public school board went ahead with its decades-long policy of distributing bibles to Grade 5 students, members of the group told trustees that no religious text should be distributed in classrooms.

“Religious accommodation is providing an inclusive environment for people of all faiths or no faith, not granting primacy to any one faith or belief,’’ said Pandit, a member of Interfaith Grand River.

“To confuse or equate accommodation with allowing various religious groups to distribute religious texts to public school children, especially if they contain an open invitation to proselytize, is wrong,” she said.

Imam Shafiq Hudda of the Islamic Humanitarian Service Centre in Kitchener, and also a member of Interfaith Grand River, said he’s pleased to see school boards accommodating students of all faiths in a secular system

It doesn’t mean the faith that is being accommodated is “being rammed down people’s throats,” said Hudda.

When he attended Cameron Heights Collegiate as a student, Hudda said he prayed in the health room and was always treated fairly by teachers who offered him the space.

Hudda’s 14-year-old son, Minhaal, a Grade 9 student at Huron Heights Secondary School in Kitchener, prays three times a day although his faith tells followers to pray five times daily.

Minhaal prefers to pray two prayers when he gets home from school to compensate for his midday prayer.

During Ramadan, an Islamic month of fasting which last year ended in early September, Minhaal said his physical education teacher asked him if he was OK during the football drills.

“Sometimes it was difficult because I couldn’t drink, but we were outdoors and I was OK,’’ said Minhaal. “The teachers were really nice.’’

Local Catholic high schools also welcome students of various faith backgrounds. Open access means any student within the school boundary can attend a Catholic high school regardless of their faith.

More Muslim parents are choosing Catholic high schools as an alternative for their children.

“It’s not a tradition they were raised in, but they like the sense of the sacred and something larger than them,” said Joan Grundy, vice-principal at St. Mary’s High School.

Grundy said St. Mary’s has not received any request from Muslim students wanting an alternative prayer room.

At Ryerson Public School in Cambridge where the nearly half of the school population of 400 students are of Muslim or Sikh background, staff there have been accommodating students long before the policy was created.

During Ramadan, some students asked to go to another room during lunch so they didn’t have to watch their peers eat as they fasted, said principal Peter Berndt.

“When you create a policy, it already reflects what you are doing,” he said.

“We are a learning environment and we maximize the learning opportunity we have in an easy and casual way,” Berndt said.

WATERLOO REGION — Public school trustees have decided to seek a legal opinion on whether they should be allowing the Gideons to distribute copies of the New Testament through schools.

The decision comes too late to change the distribution this year of copies of the New Testament to families of Grade 5 students who request one. Permission slips were sent home the first week in January, and the Gideons International in Canada are tallying the results and preparing to send the Bibles home via elementary schools.

But some trustees — beleaguered by strong and emotional criticism of sending home Christian religious materials in today’s multicultural society — said it was important to seek clarity and bring some closure to the divisive issue.

“Our community is looking to us for some clarity,” said Waterloo trustee Catherine Fife, who made the proposal.

“We’ve caused enough damage in this community by arguing this year after year,” said Kitchener trustee Kathi Smith.

“The longer we drag this out, the worse it’s going to be.”

All trustees agreed to seek the legal opinion except for Cambridge trustees Cindy Watson and Colin Harrington, who were opposed.

The legal opinion will explore whether the board’s policy allowing distribution of religious materials that are sent home, rather than used in the classroom, complies with or violates such laws as the Education Act and the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Local Muslims say they won’t be pursuing a request to have free copies of the Qur’an sent home with Grade 5 students.

The announcement was made in a news release issued Tuesday by the Kitchener masjid — the place of Muslim worship.

Members of the local Muslim community had applied to the Waterloo Region District School Board to send an English translation of the Muslim holy book home with any Grade 5 student whose parents indicate they wanted one. The request was to have been considered by the board in the fall.

“Our motivation for the request was based on Islam’s strong encouragement of the exchange of knowledge and viewpoints, to bring people closer to each other and their Creator,” the news release stated.

“However, Islam also teaches the importance of harmonious relations and avoiding unnecessary conflict and dissension within society.”

No one from the Kitchener masjid was available for comment Tuesday.

The group was initially hoping the Qur’an would be distributed under the same process that Gideons International has used for decades in the region in sending home copies of the Christian New Testament and the Hebrew Bible books of Psalms and Proverbs when requested by parents.

Under increasing pressure from critics who say public schools shouldn’t distribute any religious material, trustees voted 6-4 in November to continue the Gideons practice.

Tuesday’s news release stated that copies of the Qur’an are already available to those who contact the masjid.

“Our overriding concern is a peaceful, harmonious and constructive society that respects all viewpoints,” the release concluded.

A Muslim organization has applied to the Waterloo Region District School Board to send a copy of the Qur’an home with any Grade 5 student whose parents indicate they would like one.

A representative of the Islamic Information Center at the University of Waterloo approached the former chair of the board, Kitchener trustee Mike Ramsay, with the request about a month ago.

Ramsay said he made sure that the group got all the information it required to make the written application.

“That particular request will come before the Board in the fall of 2011 for approval of distribution of the Qur’an in the 2011-12 school year,” said the board’s education director, Linda Fabi, in an email.

Fabi couldn’t be reached for comment Friday, and neither could the Muslim representative who spoke to Ramsay.

If trustees approve, the Islamic Information Center would be using the exact same distribution process as Gideons International has for the past 64 years in Waterloo Region.

Every year, the Gideons have sent a copy of the Christian New Testament, plus the Hebrew Bible books of Psalms and Proverbs, home to families of Grade 5 students who sign a permission form for the household to receive one.

The school board doesn’t use the books for classroom instruction. It only acts as a channel through which the books are sent home.

The board distributes the permission forms and the books. The forms have to be produced by the Gideons and the distribution must happen before or after school hours.

And also, the material — described as “non-instructional religious material” — is supposed to be reviewed ahead of time to be sure it doesn’t try to convert people to another religion, and to be sure it doesn’t denigrate any groups protected by human rights legislation.

But increasingly, this practice has become deeply controversial.

Some trustees, members of the public, religious leaders and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized it as an improper role for public schools in a diverse society. They also say the board didn’t follow its own policy in some areas.

After contentious debate, trustees recently voted 6-4 to continue allowing the distribution of the Gideon book.

The permission slips are expected to be sent home from school on Monday.

With distribution of the Koran also now possible, “the debate will be very interesting,” said Ramsay, who had voted for the distribution of the Gideon books.

Some opponents of the practice had argued that the policy was unfair because not all religious groups can afford to give away so many books. The Gideons are a global group that has given away millions of Bibles.

But this latest application shows that “other groups appear to have the resources to make the distribution happen,” Ramsay said.

He said he would do what he could to make distribution of the Qur’an happen this school year, if possible.

Ramsay said he isn’t familiar with the Qur’an, but intends to review it.

“I hope it’s in English,” he said.

Board chair Kathleen Woodcock said this is the first time that she has heard of that a group other than the Gideons that has asked to distribute religious materials to students’ homes.

“Somebody’s going to have to review” the Qur’an to make sure it doesn’t proselytize, or denigrate groups protected by human rights law, she said.

Staff have always stated that trustees will be the ones reviewing the material, but the board policy doesn’t actually say who will do the review.

This is a point that will need to be clarified, she said.

Meanwhile, pressure continues to mount on trustees to halt the distribution of Gideon New Testaments, despite their recent decision to go ahead.

Monday afternoon, Woodcock will be presented with a petition with 242 signatures asking that distribution be halted.

“What we’re hoping to do is at least get someone to say, “Maybe we should hold off until we can bring this back to the board,” said Scott Colwell, one of the people who started the petition.

He knows that he is facing an uphill struggle. To halt the distribution, a two-thirds vote would be required. And also, the motion to reconsider must be made by a trustee who has changed his or her mind.

Trustees won’t meet to have that vote until mid-January, by which time the Gideon giveaway will be well underway.

Colwell has also written to board education director Fabi, asking that she “intervene and halt this process so that it may receive proper debate and review.”

He says that there are possible legal problems with the decision to distribute the New Testaments.

And trustees didn’t review the Gideon New Testament before voting.

Ramsay said he didn’t review the Gideon materials before voting last fall.

“I’m quite familiar with the contents of the New Testament.”