Here’s the problem in plain sight.
This is not just “Bible class.”
This is a released-time religious instruction program teaching 4th graders that they have a “job” to “go and make disciples” and “share the Good News.”
That means children are being pulled from the public school day and taught that part of their role is to evangelize.
And then they go right back into public school classrooms with everyone else’s children.
That is exactly why these programs create pressure inside public schools, even if enrollment is technically voluntary. The impact does not stay inside the off-site classroom. It follows kids back to lunch tables, playgrounds, classrooms, buses, friendships, and peer groups.
Public schools serve children of every faith and no faith. They are not mission fields. They are not pipelines for discipleship. They are not places where one group of children should be trained, during the school day, to see their classmates as people to convert.
Parents have every right to teach their religion to their own children. But public schools have a responsibility to protect the religious freedom, dignity, and belonging of all students.
And this is why school districts need to take released-time programs seriously. This is not neutral. This is not harmless. This is not just “off campus.”
This is organized religious instruction using the public school day to send children back into public schools with a religious mission.
Public schools belong to everyone.
They should not be treated as recruiting grounds.
Note: We blurred the children’s faces. LifeWise did not. Children’s safety and privacy should come before marketing.
What people are saying:
- Secular Education Association: Parent permission or not, minors should not have to be publicly identifiable in promotional content for a religious program.
Children are not marketing materials.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association to republicans EVERYTHING can be made into profit.
- Facebook User: They also have them coming back to school after Lifewise with treats, balloons, light up toys, etc. I’ve even had students bring back papers they were told to give to a friend. I am soooo not okay with this as a parent of a child about to enter kindergarten at our school, who I know will have lots of questions when it comes to this.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User It isn’t ok. We absolutely agree and are sorry this is even a consideration for you and your family. Thank you for sharing it here. Would you allow us to publish your account here without any identifying information? We believe first hand accounts are a powerful weapon in our fight. If we may ask; are you also a teacher? And what state? Ideally we would only use “Ohio teacher & parent” or something similar.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association yes, Ohio teacher and parent to two young children
- Facebook User: For the year 2025 LifeWise profits:
Total Revenue: Over $39.2 million (mostly from contributions and grants).
Total Expenses: Approximately $28.1 million.
Net Profit: $11,108,433.
Context: The organization increased its revenue but also increased expenses, resulting in a profit decrease of around $6 million from the 2023–24 fiscal- Secular Education Association: Facebook User thank you for adding this information! Expansion costs money, and yet they are still raking it in.
- Facebook User: That’s fine for Sunday School. Public School, NO!!
- Facebook User: The issue is, whether you believe in release time for religious reasons or not, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of it. Should schools not permit it, it would lead to a very costly, and very quick, litigation, and then the school would have to offer it. There isn’t an easy way for a school to “fight back” if they don’t want this time.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User Exactly. The Supreme Court allowed a narrow version of released time, but even then Justice Black warned what this really was: public school machinery being used to help religious instruction reach children.
That is the issue.
Schools are not neutral when they restructure the school day, attendance systems, and student movement around private religious instruction.
And “we’ll be sued if we say no” is exactly how bad law gets stretched even further.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User Exactly. The Supreme Court allowed a narrow version of released time, but even then Justice Black warned what this really was: public school machinery being used to help religious instruction reach children.
- Facebook User: Of course, what people generally ignore is that “The Great Commission” was given to the Eleven Apostles, not the general congregation. If He meant this to be a commission for everyone, would He not have given it to a crowd and not just his Apostles?
- Facebook User: Please stop indoctrinating our children.
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- Facebook User: This is what the people who say “so don’t sign your kid up; it’s that easy” refuse to understand.
- Facebook User: i hope to the fake god of akanaten that this is not real. or at the least, aprivate school.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User oh it’s very real. Happening to public school kids, during school hours.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association fcking gross.
to maintain our republic, its time to remove conservatives from it. - Secular Education Association: Facebook User we tend to agree and we won’t pretend that it isn’t primarily a conservative construct. But truthfully- ANYONE pushing this sort of thing needs removed. We don’t care the affiliation.
People, programs, ideologies, political machines, religious agendas…..if they are using public school time to access kids for private religious instruction, they need to be out of public schools.
GET. AWAY. FROM. THE. KIDS.
- Facebook User: Been hearing a lot of people say how nefarious life wise is 🤔
- Facebook User: Facebook User I’m glad you are being awakened to the schemes of this Christian Nationalist group.
Many of us have been warning others for years about them but sadly, that kult still managed to infiltrate our schools. - Secular Education Association: Facebook User welcome. It’s true, we have the receipts.
- Facebook User: Facebook User I’m glad you are being awakened to the schemes of this Christian Nationalist group.
- Facebook User: Churches lining up prey.
- Facebook User: It is so sad to see places where churches are so ineffective in teaching their children their beliefs and religious texts that they require the assistance of the secular state….
- Facebook User: Not very wise to groom children to shover their religion onto others.
- Facebook User: So frustrating to have one particular version of Christianity (fear based theology) promoted in public schools where it does not belong.
- Facebook User: Indoctrination
- Facebook User: As a strong United Methodist, I find this appalling. Also as a 38 yr. Retired teacher, this is even more appalling. Specials need time, not for religious training. How about science experiments? Or other academic disciplines? This needs to be changed.
- Facebook User: Just wait till they turn them against their parents, every cult does it..🤷♀️
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User they actually have an internal document that says something like -obey god above/before your parents. So. This tracks.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association I believe it..🤮
- Facebook User: Facebook User ask the parents in Ohio.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association as well as telling them the only true family is the nuclear family
And kids of divorce or LGBTQ are living in sin and going to hell
So disturbing - Secular Education Association: Facebook User exactly.
- Facebook User: As someone who grew up in a minority religion, and now as a parent of two, this is what frightens me. Those who don’t see this as a problem, or act like it’s “no big deal” must not remember what it’s like being a kid, or have no empathy for minorities. To have peers judge your beliefs, tell you that they’re wrong, and continuously tell you that, because it’s what organizations like this are teaching EVERY WEEK, takes a toll on children and puts them in an uncomfortable situation, time and time again.
- Facebook User: Facebook User Great point. Too many parents see “religion” as all good and are unaware of harmful beliefs and practices some push as gospel to further their cause.
- Facebook User: Facebook User Yes! A friend with Jewish children in public school had their kid bullied because of LW.
- Facebook User: Grooming public school children to groom public school students to indoctrinate them in Lie Wise particular brand of Evangelical propaganda. Just seems wrong.
- Facebook User: Leave the preaching to the preachers, leaver the teaching to the teachers. I learn about Jesus in church, I learn reading writing and arithmetic in school.
- Facebook User: I don’t know if you know this, but children are also taught to spread the Gospel in Sunday school.
- Facebook User: Facebook User I remember that. Every Sunday we were instructed to “bring a visitor next week, and you’ll both get a special prize.” They pushed tracts on us to pass out at school. I finally told my mom (a minister’s kid herself) about how being pressured to recruit made me feel anxious,and she apologized, not knowing how bad it was. She told me not to worry about it, to just live my life and wait until someone asked me what was special in my life to share Jesus…I was soooo relieved. I cant imagine how much worse it is for kids being pumped up with that, then immediately being sent back into a classroom. At least I had Sunday evening to cool down, lol. It’s horrible what they do to children. 😪
- Facebook User: Facebook User I don’t know if you know this but there’s a difference between a church sanctioned activity and a school sanctioned activity.
Kids can separate the two when they are kept separate but when you mix the two, and it’s fresh in their minds in the middle of a school day, they are most definitely more likely to go back to school and bully their classmates. - Facebook User: Facebook User yes, but I feel like it’s worse when they immediately come back from a lesson and then preach to their peers about what they just learned.
- Facebook User: Facebook User but that’s an area where the state can’t go. That’s private and the state is not involved in promoting that. They are turning the public school, ie. The State, into an evangelizing organization. They are literally hijacking government to spread their own interpretation of religious text. That is objectively wrong.
Whatever they do and say in their own church is fine, I don’t care.
- Facebook User: Amen!!!!!!
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