If you or your parent object to a particular assigned book or topic of instruction for a religious reason schools usually try to work out an alternative. [1]  But since the point of school is to expose students to new ideas and to encourage critical thinking, it is against the school’s mission to limit that exposure just because something is contradictory to a religious teaching held by a student or parent.  And courts have held that a school learning requirement that’s religiously offensive is not therefore a prohibited burden on the constitutional right to free exercise of religion. [2]  Tailoring what’s taught to the beliefs of some religious group would actually amount to an Establishment Clause violation—as shown in the consistent failure of cases where parents tried to stop the teaching of evolution on the ground that it contradicts their preferred Biblical account of the creation of the world.

Still, in the District of Columbia a student has the right “to refuse to participate in school activities which are contrary to the student's moral, religious, or political beliefs.”22 No case has asked a court to define the extent of that right.  And neither Maryland county has a similar provision.

[1] Grove v. Mead Sch. Dist No. 354, 753 F.2d 1528 (9th Cir. 1985)(holding no Establishment Clause violation where school refused to drop an assigned book parent objected to on religious grounds and instead allowed student to read an alternate book and leave the room during discussion of the objectionable one).

[2] Mozert v. Hawkins County Bd. of Educ., 827 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1987)(refusing to allow a family to opt out of the entire reading series chosen by the school district).
[22] 5 DCMR § 2401.11.