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But, no, public schools did not require prayers and I went to school a LONG time ago (midwest).
We did do the pledge of allegiance though. It was rote and no one really thought twice about it or what was being said (or not).
But I went to parochial schools. 
My thought is with God's omnipresent, there is no keeping out so if they believe, then what the hell are they talking about. 
Last edited Sat Oct 28, 2017, 12:47 AM - Edit history (1)
Added: I'd thought I'd remembered this correctly: the school district I was in was Union Free District #9 and apparently it was the one that brought the school prayer issue all the way to the Supreme Court!
from Wikipedia
Seven years later, Steven I. Engel, a Jew, was upset to see his son’s hands clasped and his head bent in prayer. He told his son that this was “not the way we say prayers.” Engel, a founding member of the New York Civil Liberties Union, would bring action along with Daniel Lichtenstein, Monroe Lerner, Lenore Lyons, and Lawrence Roth, all parents of children in the Long Island, New York public school system, against Union Free School District No. 9 for its adoption and subsequent prescription of the so-called "Regent's prayer", arguing that it constituted the state-sponsored establishment of religion in violation of citizens’ First Amendment rights via the Fourteenth Amendment.[5]
Do remember duck n cover drills. 
I loved to sing. My family was Russian orthodox light - we did church once a year at Easter.
I would go to any church in my neighborhood (we moved several times) from the time I was 8.
They would feel sorry for me and let me sing in the choir. I was really happy and had no belief in the mystical father so it did t matter. Whenever the priest or minister or whatever the designation was would come to our house to speak with my parents they would listen politely and say they didn’t speak English. Worked every time.
Lots of candles and incense and people milling about outside the sanctuary.
It was definitely a social occasion. All the families would bring a basket with Easter goodies (ham, fat back, Pascha, whatever else would be eaten later) to be blessed. Everybody would hang around waiting for the priest to splash holy water on the baskets and then, after the wander around the block with attendant ceremony, we would all go home.
It was a lovely experience. Sadly, it was lost on me as a religious experience. I would not mind going again just as a nostalgia event but, as a died in the wool atheist, it would only make the holy father weep.
The church of my childhood was called Our Lady Joy Of All Sorrows. The name always reminded me of Joan Rivers putative Jewish parochial school Our Lady Of Perpetual Guilt.
At Christmas our principal would sing Christmas songs, and he was a bad singer. I moved to another school in our town, they didn't do prayer...I guess they thought the poor side of town needed Jesus more the the middle class kids
I really don't recall praying during that time, I was only 6. I do remember the court action. Madalyn Murray O'Hair grew up Rossford OH, not far from my hometown. Her name came up a lot at the time.
BTW the area code for Rossford is 666.
We said the Pledge every morning, followed by the "school prayer", all I remember is that it ended with "our parents, our teachers and our country." Then one day we were told we wouldn't be saying it anymore, we were told it was being replaced by a moment of silence when we were expected to pray to ourselves. I'm guessing now that some law was passed, don't remember it being explained. So some student was assigned to call for the silence in the beginning, we never knew how long it would be, depended on the student, and it was disconcerting because it was a change and no one was sure exactly what to do. Sometime after that, the "moment" disappeared too, not sure when, but nobody seemed to miss it. 
