🚨 New: Public Records Reveal Serious Disability and Oversight Failures in LifeWise Programs
Secular Education Association obtained a Students With Disabilities FAQ through a public records request. The document was sent by a LifeWise Academy Director directly to a public school principal and district administrators. It was not shared with families.
What it reveals raises serious concerns about student safety, disability rights, and public school oversight.
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🚩 Disability training still “being developed” — after SIX years
The document admits:
Training to support students with disabilities is “currently being developed.”
LifeWise has operated during the public school day for approximately six years.
That means:
• Students with disabilities have participated for years
• Programs operated without finalized disability-support training
• Children were removed from school without trained staff
• School administrators were made aware of this reality
This is not a startup gap. It is a longstanding failure.
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🚩 Inclusion and safety concerns for students with disabilities
According to LifeWise’s own guidance:
• Students with IEPs and 504 plans are enrolled
• LifeWise does not receive or implement IEPs or 504s
• Disability disclosure is voluntary and made to a religious organization
• Accommodations may rely on parents or untrained volunteers
• Students may be excluded if supports are unavailable
Students with disabilities do not lose their legal protections during the school day. IEPs and 504 plans are binding civil-rights protections, not optional considerations.
When supports are improvised, conditional, or unavailable, student safety and equal access are at risk.
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🚩 Taxpayer-funded aides sent to a religious program
The document also states:
“School district aides do not accompany students to the LifeWise classroom unless the school has offered to do so.”
This is a written admission that taxpayer-funded public school employees are sometimes sent to accompany students to a religious instruction program during the school day.
That is not neutral accommodation.
That is public funding and support of religious instruction.
Public school aides are paid to support students’ public education, not to facilitate off-campus religious programming. Sending publicly funded staff to support one religion is explicitly prohibited and raises serious Establishment Clause and disability-equity concerns.
This is not theoretical. It is acknowledged in writing to school administrators.
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➡️ Why this matters
Taken together, this document shows:
• Years of disability participation without finalized training
• Conditional inclusion for students with disabilities
• Use of taxpayer-funded staff to support religious instruction
• A lack of transparency and meaningful oversight
This is not about personal belief.
It is about misuse of public funds, disability rights, student safety, and accountability in public schools.
Taxpayer-funded school aides cannot be used to support religious instruction.
Students with disabilities deserve trained staff and equal protection.
Public schools must remain religiously neutral.
SEA is continuing to review these records and their implications nationwide.
What people are saying:
- Secular Education Association: Sharing for disability-rights advocates and special education experts. This document raises serious questions about safety, inclusion, and oversight for students with disabilities during the school day.
Facebook User
Facebook User
Facebook User- Facebook User: Secular Education Association additionally Facebook User Facebook User
- Facebook User: Still developing their disability training 6 years in when this is explicitly in their website FAQ is a certain kinda idea
- Facebook User: I’m with you completely, but have a question on your post. It says aides are not always sent but can be. This made you say “aids can’t go for religious teachings”. But you also say that the EIP has to be followed through that day. These contradict each other.
I know the answer is they shouldn’t go and the whole thing should be shut down, and I agree whole heartedly. But your argument doesn’t allow a path forward other than a “kids with disabilities should not be allowed to go because the public school employee can’t go” which circles you into a civil right fight and you being against it.
Just pointing out so you can improve your messaging. Keep up the fight! We need as much support against lifewise. And as an aid for special needs kids, I know I’ll turn down being told I had to go if it came up. Thankfully hasn’t yet!
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User Thank you for raising this — and genuinely, thank you for the work you do as an aide. That perspective matters a lot.
You’re right that on the surface it can sound contradictory, so let me clarify what we’re saying (and what we’re not saying).
• IEPs must be followed for the entire school day. That obligation never disappears.
• Public school employees cannot be required to participate in or facilitate religious instruction. That includes being reassigned to accompany students to off-campus religious programs.Those two things collide because of the structure of released-time programs, not because students with disabilities “shouldn’t be allowed to go.”
The point we’re making is this: when a private religious program chooses to operate during the school day, it assumes the responsibility to meet students’ needs without relying on public school staff or public resources. If they can’t do that safely, legally, and equitably — then the program itself is the problem.
So the “path forward” is not exclusion.
The path forward is:
• LifeWise (or any RTRI program) funding and providing its own trained staff and aides, or
• Not operating during the instructional day at all.What isn’t acceptable is putting schools in an impossible position where they’re forced to choose between:
1. violating civil rights law, or
2. violating church-state boundaries.You’re also absolutely right that aides should never be pressured into this role — and the fact that many, like you, would (rightly) refuse underscores how untenable this setup is.
Really appreciate you flagging this in good faith — that kind of pushback helps us sharpen the message while keeping the focus where it belongs: on protecting students, staff, and public schools from being put in legally impossible situations.
- Facebook User: No, their messaging is right on. The point is to force the dilemma into the spotlight. Can’t accommodate kids with disabilities while you’re TEACHING, it needs a public school employee to help? Easy, shut the entire operation down until those kids have the same support.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association appreciate the clarification! Keep up the good fight and I’ll be looking on your website to see how I can help!
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User Thank you for raising this — and genuinely, thank you for the work you do as an aide. That perspective matters a lot.
- Facebook User: This will fall back on if the parent chooses for their student to go. Parents need to be informed that the supports their students receive as a student with disabilities will not be available during RTRI. For example if a student is Deaf and uses an interpreter at school, that interpreter would not be provided at RTRI unless that program pays for it themselves. Most interpreting agencies in OH have a 2 hr min and rates of anywhere from 70-100 an hour. The argument will be “parent’s knew and they agreed” you also see this logic when it comes to IEPs and 504s sadly.
- Facebook User: Facebook User I can see cutting interpreter time for deaf students if they are leaving for RTRI. Anything to save a buck, and LW is there to help.
- Facebook User: I feel like this is super muddy water. Since LW isn’t a school activity, the IEP or 504 wouldn’t be in effect, only ADA type things would be until the students with disabilities return to school. If the district was being reimbursed by LW for the time that the aide was gone, that’s technically okay. Now this is how I interpret it as an Ohio intervention specialist, and there’s a good chance I’m incorrect.
- Facebook User: Oh gross, not one single paid employee should ever be allowed to accompany them no matter who is paying. Thats wild and shouldnt be ok. This world is insane. The entire point of policy is clarity. If any policy is muddy, its an inherent failure from the rip. I hate people.
- Facebook User: Seems like a fantastic place to drop this. Your history lesson on the separation between church & state & why it’s important…https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Eres9bX4p/
- Facebook User: Keep digging, keep advocating, shut them down!
- Facebook User: I’ll be keeping my child far away for LW!
- Facebook User: And all this could be fixed if lazy white nationalist parents would just get off their asses and take their fuckin kid to church on Sundays.
- Facebook User: All Charter schools are scams that divert taxpayer money away from public institutions into greedy profiteers pockets. No exceptions, all. Their false and distorted “success” rates ignore their concentration of personnel to an extremely low volume of students. And even while trying to swat a fly with a sledge hammer, their factual success rate is equal to or sometimes less than public schools.
- Facebook User: Fucking SHOCKED. They are also groomers. And pedos
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