Q: I am employed at a public (government funded) pool and we had members of a religion attempt to come in and solicit
children during pool hours. I told them no, and that I would have to talk to our board of directors about a final decision. I'm assuming since we are a public entity that the establishment clause would prevent them from doing this legally. Any suggestions you could give me would be very helpful.
A:
Private property, even if wholly funding by the government, can lawfully restrict use/actions of any "visitor" with or withhold cause for any reason. Note this is very broad (hence why some court clubs in the south still lawfully restrict African-Americans and other groups from use and membership).
For government property, certain 1st Amendment free speech rights, etc. apply in "public use" areas. In that case, you are correct the "negative" Establishment Clause prevents the government from favoring any religion over another. What this means in practice (with some specific exceptions) is that a public space must allow all religions to use the space or no religion to use the space (most government entities favor the latter). The 1st Amendment also requires a division of church and state (by inference). Lastly, since this involves government funds there is likely a condition as part of the funding that no religious use is a condition of the funding (under separation of church and state principles).
If you want more information about the Establishment Clause and the 1st Amendment there are two solid articles on Wikipedia (esp. for non-lawyers).
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