🚨OHIO🚨 ACTION ALERT: HB 57 Expands Religious Released-Time During the Public School Day 🚨

Ohio lawmakers just passed Sub. HB 57 — a bill that rewrites the state’s released-time statute to let districts excuse students for much more of the school day to attend off-campus religious programs such as LifeWise Academy.

⚠️ How it passed:

Lawmakers folded this expansion into HB 57 — a bill that was originally about overdose-reversal drugs in schools.
😡😡😡By pairing a controversial church-state change with a popular public-health measure, they moved the released-time rewrite forward with less public attention and debate.

🔎 What changed:

• Every district must already allow at least one period per week for released-time religious instruction.

• HB 57 now lets districts go well beyond the previous two-period weekly cap — especially for high-schoolers, who can be excused for the equivalent of TWO full units of credit per week.

• Districts must work with the religious program to schedule time during the school day and may even let released-time courses substitute for other high-school credits.

• Students are not marked absent while away at these classes — but the minutes come straight out of public-school instructional time.

📉 What this means:

MORE class time pulled from science, math, art, special-ed services, electives, and teacher contact-hours — handed over to private religious programs.

🚨This isn’t “local control.” It’s a new state-level carve-out that shifts the balance of the public school day.

✍️ HB 57 still needs a final concurrence vote in the House before heading to the Governor, but passage is likely. Parents, educators, and boards should speak up now.

📺 Watch the hearings yourself:

• Senate Education Committee – Sept 30 ( HB 57 begins ≈ 5:25 ) →

https://ohiochannel.org/video/ohio-senate-education-committee-9-30-2025?start=325

• Senate Floor Session – Oct 1 ( HB 57 debate ≈ 32:00 ) →

https://ohiochannel.org/video/ohio-senate-10-1-2025?start=1920

SEA believes public-school instructional time must remain secular, inclusive, and evidence-based.

‼️Every additional period carved out for released-time religious classes means less time for public-school teachers to do their jobs and deeper inequities for the kids who stay behind.

👉 Join us at to help defend the wall between church and state in Ohio’s classrooms.

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