🚨 NEW REPORTING: LifeWise Academy’s rapid expansion — by the numbers 🚨

According to LifeWise Academy’s latest IRS filings, the controversial Hilliard-based religious instruction program:

• Raised $39.2 million in FY 2024–25
• Took in $34.4 million from contributions and grants alone
• Reported $11.1 million in net profit (down ~$6M from the prior year)
• Increased expenses to $28.1 million — up ~$10M year over year
• Spent $208,000 on lobbying
• Employed 1,329 staff with a payroll of $18 million
• Served 60,000 students in 32 states, with plans to reach 100,000 students nationally by 2026

📍 In Ohio, LifeWise is now operating in 260+ of 607 school districts, with plans to reach 300 districts by the end of this school year — a 62.5% increase in just one year.

This expansion closely followed a change in Ohio law that shifted religious release time from optional (“may”) to mandatory policy adoption (“shall”) for school districts — legislation LifeWise leadership actively supported and testified for.

AHEM. Making something MANDATORY is absolutely going to cause a huge spike in the number of programs….. 🤦‍♀️🙄

While LifeWise states that its funding supports off-campus religious instruction, transportation, facilities, staff, curriculum, and insurance, parents across the country continue to raise concerns about:
• Student exclusion and social pressure
• Use of public school infrastructure and funding to facilitate private religious programs
• Lack of transparency before programs are introduced into districts
•Liability and Safety

📌 This is NOT a small, local ministry.
It is a fast-scaling national operation, increasingly embedded in public school systems through policy changes — often before communities fully understand the implications.

🔗 Read the full reporting via Ohio Capital Journal.

https://www.timesbulletin.com/lifewise-academy-raised-more-than-39-million-last-year-but-profit-dropped-to-11-1-million/D

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