What people are saying:

• Secular Education Association: Secular Education Association
• Facebook User: This is on the schools. They should DEMAND permission slips be renewed each school year. So that the CHOICE remains with the PARENTS.
• Facebook User: I am curious as to how many of these LW groups are actually taking kids out of lunch? Because the schools around me are taking the kids out of the unified arts classes! (Music teacher mom here!)
  • Facebook User: Facebook User that tracks; one of the characteristics of fascism is disdain for intellectuals and the arts
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User typically only those that pressure or force Lifewise to do so. They VERY much prefer to do it during specials/unified arts. Attendance when it’s during lunch and recess DRAMATICALLY drops.
  • Facebook User: I didn’t remember that about fascism, but I googled it, and you’re absolutely right. Unless of course it idealizes THEIR ideology, and then it says they will even go so far as to FUND it. Sounds like LifeWise and all their propaganda. They spend lots of money on “excellence” as they call it when it comes to all of their advertising. 🙄
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Oh, my! Isn’t music a required/graded subject? It is in my district. And, as a music lover and parent of some pretty great girls who lived for vocal music, and still love singing and listening to music at 34 and 41, music would not be one to pull kids from even if they are already showing some interest in a program like this (btw, my kids would NEVER have been allowed to go to such a thing; we already weathered the harmful lie delivered by a local megachurch when they told my young child that her dad and I would burn in hell since we were not ‘saved’).
  • Facebook User: Facebook User also, as a public school Title I tutor for 33 years, I was only allowed to pull kids from one special: Library…since our students would be practicing reading skills. THAT makes sense…of course, none of this makes sense to me…
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User in Ohio music isn’t required by state law every year. The state only says schools must offer fine arts in K-8, and high-schoolers just need a ½-credit in any fine art to graduate.

    So when a district makes music a graded class each year, that’s a local policy, not a state rule — which means it can be interrupted.

    And because of the change in Ohio law, districts now have to allow LifeWise-style release-time programs during the school day if parents sign the permission slip. That means students can legally be pulled out of music (or any other non-core class the schedule permits), even if the class is graded.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association thanks for the clarification.
• Facebook User: My daughter is in 2nd grade. Last year when she moved to the elementary school, they had her permission slip at open house. We declined. This year for 2nd grade open house, there was no permission slip or any communication if we wanted our student to participate. So I would have assumed if I didn’t tell her teacher personally I did not want her to go to life wise and also had my daughter tell her teacher on the first day of school she would not be permitted to go they would have sent her. This is in Van Wert Ohio.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User unfortunately that school has about 93 percent enrollment in Lifewise academy 😕 The teachers don’t want to be bothered with the few students still at school.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User I fully agree.