And the cost of the campaign is no obstacle, likely to run at least $10,000 annually.

Every year from now on, school districts will have to send a copy of retiring Sen. Parley Hellewell's nonbinding resolution reinforcing the right to engage in religious expression in public schools to 510,000 public school students, their parents, the PTA, Utah Education Association, State Board of Education, Utah League of Cities and Towns and Utah Association of Counties.

"Teachers are kind of afraid. They don't know what the law is. They don't know what they can or can't do," said Hellewell. "This is going to be a really big help for them."

As originally written, the resolution only required the resolution to be publicized once. But House Education Committee members amended the legislation to require annual distribution of the statement.

Sprinkled with quotes from the U.S. and Utah constitutions and interpretations of court precedent, the resolution states: ''The Legislature of the state of Utah recognizes the right of public school students to voluntarily participate in prayer, and also in the singing of songs and in expressions related to holidays that are religious in nature, in public schools, within known legal limits of religious expression, tolerance, civility, and dignity as contemplated by this nation's founders.''

Normally toothless statements of legislative sentiment, resolutions typically do not include a fiscal note. Hellewell says no one discussed the cost of sending the statement to every Utah student.

Rhonda Rose, Utah PTA vice president for legislation, said her organization is willing to copy the resolution in its newsletter. "It would be easy," Rose said.

If the PTA doesn't pick up the tab, school districts could be on the hook for copying costs - at 2 cents a page, the tab to duplicate the resolution for public school students would reach $10,000.

Besides parental consent forms for particular classes, Utah Office of Education Attorney Carol Lear said she was unaware of lawmakers requiring schools to distribute any other information to every student. She hopes the task can be consolidated, and associated costs reduced, by sending the resolution to individual families in student registration materials.

Lear said that while the resolution contains no enforcement mechanism, educators take seriously the mandate to distribute the material.

If public money is spent to send the resolution out, that order could run afoul of the Constitution's prohibitions on the state backing any establishment of religion.

Short of that, American Civil Liberties Union of Utah Attorney Margaret Plane said she worries about "inaccuracies" and "misrepresentations" of First Amendment law in the resolution. Among the resolution's flaws are statements that prayer is "fundamental to the exercise of both religion and free speech," she said. The resolution also uses terminology that comes from no court precedent, such as a reference to a "union-of-church-and-state-ban."

And hopefully legislative attorneys will catch a misspelling (which lawmakers did not) in the resolution about the "lawful roll of religious expression" before sending the bill on to the governor for his signature.

"It's one thing to waste a bunch of money on paper, but at least make sure what you put on there is accurate," Plane said.