How LifeWise Quietly Engineered State Power — and Why Ohio Was Only the Beginning
In fall 2023, Ohio school boards were debating whether LifeWise Academy should be allowed to pull students out of class for religious instruction.
Parents raised concerns.
Boards asked questions.
Some districts hesitated.
Then Dave Yost Attorney General/ Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sent a letter to every superintendent in the state.
The message was clear: released-time religious instruction was legal, expanding, and nothing to worry about.
What school officials weren’t told — and what parents couldn’t see — was how that letter came to be.
📧 Internal LifeWise emails now show that before Yost’s letter was sent, Joel Penton LifeWise CEO:
• discussed leveraging a pastor’s “deep relationship” with the Attorney General
• debated what Yost should say
• drafted specific talking points they wanted echoed
• planned to reuse the letter statewide to pressure districts
Just nine days later, Yost’s letter went out — not to one board, but to the entire state.
School boards stopped debating.
Parents were told the issue was “settled.”
Children were pulled from class.
When the public later requested records related to the letter, the Attorney General’s office said no responsive documents existed.
*Edit – A third party submitted a public-records request seeking communications related to the letter. SEA has not been provided the request or response. Subsequent LifeWise emails raise serious questions about what records exist and how those communications occurred.*
Months later, LifeWise’s own emails told a different story.
This wasn’t an isolated moment.
It was part of a broader ecosystem in Ohio where powerful religious lobbying networks work hand-in-hand with state officials — and where local control over public schools is quietly overridden.
And Ohio wasn’t the end.
LifeWise operates in more than 34 states.
What happened here offers a roadmap for how public education can be reshaped — quietly, quickly, and WITHOUT public consent.
📖 Read the full investigation, including the emails: https://seculareducationassociation.org/2025/12/14/how-lifewise-quietly-engineered-state-power-and-why-ohio-was-only-the-beginning/
Public schools belong to families — not private religious organizations, and not back-channel politics.
If this happened in Ohio, it can happen anywhere.
Our research shows it is happening in multiple states right now…
Stay vigilant. Keep Fighting.
– Secular Education Association
What people are saying:
- Secular Education Association: 🚨LifeWise Academy formally requested support from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost — and he delivered. Yost then sent a statewide letter to every Ohio superintendent promoting released-time religious instruction, a move that functionally advanced LifeWise’s expansion. He has also appeared at LifeWise fundraisers and at the opening of its new headquarters.
This coordination didn’t happen in a vacuum. Former Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted participated in LifeWise promotional events across all 88 Ohio counties. Today, Lieutenant Governor Jim Tressel serves on LifeWise Academy’s fundraising board.
When top state officials actively promote, fundraise for, and amplify a private religious program that removes students from the public school day, the line between church and state isn’t just blurred — it’s being crossed.
Full article linked above.
- Secular Education Association: Secular Education Association
Facebook User
Facebook User
Facebook User
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Facebook User- Facebook User: Secular Education Association Facebook User
- Facebook User: Plenty of hours after school or weekends for religious education of the family’s choice. It is too disruptive to have children leaving and coming back in. Those recess, lunch, art or music classes are important social times for children and add to their overall education.
- Facebook User: I graduated in 2008 in Leipsic, OH but there was this pastor who ran Youth for Christ/Fellowship of Christian athletes and he would hold Bible studies in the history class room before school, he’d come at lunch time and talk to his “favorites” and he made the comment one time time how there were so many unchurched kids who needed God in public schools and we should recruit them for Christ. I really hated it and thought it was creepy. It makes me shudder now how the tables have turned.
- Facebook User: 😡
- Facebook User: Can’t thank the SEA team enough for exposing fraud at the highest levels.
- Facebook User: Just another reason NOT to support Jon Husted! He is tied to the First Energy corruption and now ties to this spread of forced compliance by our school districts! No town halls and TV ads with “Maga” support! Not for Ohio! Not surprised that Jim Tressel is on their fundraising board!🤬
- Facebook User: Facebook User Penton the founder was on the OSU football team. He used to go to my church. Only shows up in the past years when he was begging for money.
- Facebook User: Doesn’t it seem to you that voters are going to have to ferret out the religious backgrounds of candidates to prevent this kind of “cooperation” with extremist sects? If we elect them, we are supporting White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism. Is that where we want to go? That doesn’t support freedom of religion in my book.
- Facebook User: Absolute slime!
- Facebook User: I’m not a fan of them, but if they’re lobbying well and this is their playbook, maybe it’s good to learn from
- Facebook User: God dam drunk
- Facebook User: Bravo to Facebook User for what they are doing. 🥳
- Facebook User: Facebook User and if it was The Satanic Temple doing it?
- Facebook User: Good will ALWAYS overcome evil, just like light always overcomes darkness.
- Facebook User: This is so underhanded of Ohio’s administration and yet typical of them- they need to go
- Facebook User: Disgusting..so glad I’m no longer on in school..but it’s horrible what they are doing to this next generation
- Facebook User: A huge cult that continues to affect people who aren’t even in at this point. Take them down put them back in their place, church and state should be separate.
- Facebook User: And this surprises anyone? Yost is a scumbag
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