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 The group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, said school officials
cited the separation of church and state when they banned religious
speech during recess and other "open periods" at Pine Creek High
School, north of Colorado Springs.
Academy District Twenty, which covers Pine Creek High School, said
in a statement in response that non-curricular groups, which include
religious groups, may only meet before classes begin and after they
end.
School officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment
on the suit.
"Public schools should encourage the free exchange of ideas,"
Alliance Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco said in a statement on
Monday, after the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on
Friday.
 "Instead, this school implemented an ill-conceived ban that singles
out religious speech for censorship during free time."
The issue of prayer in schools is the latest flashpoint in a broader
liberal-conservative clash over control of curricula that also
flared up last month in Colorado in a fight over the content of an
advanced history course.
The Arizona-based Alliance was part of efforts that led a school
board in that state to vote to remove information about
contraception from a biology textbook after the board's conservative
majority said it broke state law.
The Alliance got involved in the Pine Creek case after a senior,
Chase Windebank, said he and other students were stopped from
meeting in an unoccupied choir room twice a week to pray, sing
Christian songs, and discuss topical issues from a religious
perspective.
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It said the school told the students the meetings, which had been
taking place for three years, could continue, but that any religious
speech must stop.
Lawyers for the Alliance, which describes itself as a non-profit
legal organization that advocates for the right of people to live
out their faith in freedom, wrote to the school last month saying
the policy violates the First Amendment.
Academy District Twenty said the meetings took place during a period
known as "seminar," which is considered instructional time.
"Noncurriculum-related groups, which include religious groups, are
permitted to meet both before and after instructional time," it
said.
(Editing by Eric Walsh)
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