Bronx middle school teacher disciplined for ordering her students to pray to Jesus
Michelle Schindelheim told investigators she stopped class and told pupils "they were going to talk to God"

A God-fearing city teacher earned a slap on the wrist for ordering her students to kneel and pray to Jesus, education officials said.
Michelle Schindelheim, of Bronx Middle School 301, drew the attention of investigators in March 2011, after students complained that she was forcing them to pray to God instead of teaching them to read.
Students told investigators that just before Christmas 2010 the English as a Second Language instructor stopped class and told students “they were going to talk to God.”
Then Schindelheim, who is 47 and earns $80,000, ordered students to “sit in a circle and sing and pray to God,” making the kids recite The Lord’s Prayer in their native Spanish.
She even whipped out her cell phone and put her priest on speakerphone, so he could listen to her class’s prayers, investigators said.
Schindelheim, who has worked in city schools since 1991, confessed when investigators questioned her about the incident.
She told them the whole thing was a “stupid idea” suggested by a friend who was teaching a meditation class.
She also admitted that she had made her “class re-enact scenes from the life and death of Jesus,” investigators said.