A LifeWise Academy program director in Mississippi was just honored with the Red Rose Award by the Sigma Chapter of The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, a local chapter of an international honor society for women educators. Delta Kappa Gamma says its mission is to promote the professional and personal growth of women educators and excellence in education.
According to the article, she was recognized in part for helping build a partnership with the Pearl River County School District that allows parents to enroll children in Bible-based character education during school hours. The ceremony was also held at the LifeWise Building at Central Baptist Church.
That matters.
Not because Delta Kappa Gamma is a church group, but because it is not. It is an education-linked honor society. Its Red Rose Award appears to typically recognize women seen as advancing education or community leadership. Public examples include educators, librarians, advocates, and civic leaders.
So when a group like that publicly honors a LifeWise Academy director for work tied to Bible-based instruction during the school day, it helps normalize sectarian access to public-school children as if it were part of education itself. The article even frames this as “bridg[ing] the gap between community faith and formal education.”
This is how normalization works.
Religious instruction gets rebranded as “character education.”
Church-run access to public-school students gets reframed as educational leadership.
And the public is encouraged to see it as something admirable instead of what it is: a private sectarian program operating through school-day access to children.
Public education should be secular, inclusive, and free from religious favoritism.
If an education-linked honor society is willing to celebrate this, that should concern every parent, educator, and community member who cares about church-state separation in public schools.
Read more in the article below.
https://picayuneitem.com/2026/03/local-educator-rindi-hariel-honored-with-red-rose-award/
What people are saying:
- Facebook User: It’s not education. It’s religious indoctrination.
- Facebook User: That group has no business whatsoever being in our public schools.
- Facebook User: SMH
- Facebook User: Has SEA reached out?
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User We may. Right now, we’re calling attention to the larger issue publicly, but direct outreach is certainly something we’re considering.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association Lifewise is in my former school (retired from there after 42 years…and just a few years after I left Lifewise came into their midst….the churches of the community even constructed a small building right across the road from our 2 school buildings ( in a rural area) …..the community seems ‘fine’ with it. But it saddens me greatly…..I am a firm believer of separation of church and state….and this is a yard too far for me!!!
- Facebook User: Article link: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DNY55QMLC/
- Facebook User: The only thing that I would say contrary to what you’re saying is they’re not forcing anything on anyone correct? You don’t have to be a part of the program right?
- Facebook User: This is some bullshit.
- Facebook User: I’m tired of Christian’s trying not to only brainwash their own kids, but brainwash the rest of them too. They have no business doing this shit.
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