What people are saying:

• Secular Education Association: Before anyone jumps in to “refute” this by saying it does not operate this way at their school: THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

  There is no consistent oversight, no meaningful accountability, and often no consequences when released-time religious instruction disrupts the public-school day.

  If your superintendent and administrators care enough to protect instructional time and maintain the wall between public education and religious programming, great.

  Many do not.

  We cannot have children in one city suffering while children in another are protected. These rights cannot be applied differently from school to school or state to state.

  Religious freedom belongs to every child, no matter where they go to school.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association my children attend a school with a religious program (not lifewise) often there is only one other student left with them. The teacher doesn’t know what to do with them.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User EXACTLY. We’ve heard this before too. And it’s not ok. The teacher should continue the lesson. Period. It isn’t just a LifeWise problem. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of these RTRI programs.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User would you allow us to publish your comment above at some point – with none of your identifying information? It’s important that we make sure this is made crystal clear.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association yes! I strongly believe in this cause and don’t want religious ed interfering with my kids’ public education!
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User thank you so much!
• Secular Education Association:
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association, they are teaching them to hate. When did that become character development?
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User when Christian nationalists decided to use “character education” as a front for indoctrination.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association we ate not says all I need to fucking no.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association you are a liar…..
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User are we? Prove it.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association prove that your not, lifewise is done during recess time and never disrupts the classroom time.
  • Facebook User: Public schools are really government indoctrination centers who use brainwashed liberals as teachers.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User more often than not- it’s during specials time. That’s an internal document from LIFEWISE. Better get your facts straight before you accuse people of lying.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User who’s the liar now?
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association we ATE not permitted 😂😂😂. Seems like you would proof what you post!
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User you ATE WHAT? What are you talking about. Go sit down.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association read the first sentence…I think ate should be are 😂
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User over your head huh? Go somewhere.
• Facebook User: So, the Baptists (all conventions), Methodists (United, Independent, Global), Catholics, Lutherans, Mormons, Congressionalists, Church of Christ, Assembly of God, Episcopalians, and et al, each have a their own group to attend? That doesn’t sound disruptive at all.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User that’s where we are heading.
• Facebook User: I am a Christian. I have no personal experience with Lifewise. The concerns over the disruption in the school day has been a question with me too. Id have to seeit before I judge it though.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User or you could listen to the hundreds of teachers, teacher aids, specialists, clergy, and administrators who have said as such. 💁‍♀️
  • Facebook User: Facebook User it’s not only the distruption, but the version of christian theology. Just because they claimed to be a Christian organization doesn’t mean it has the same value and interpretation as yours. They just use the common banner to lure in unsuspecting parents. They are also very much involved in politics.
• Facebook User: Why do students get to leave regular classes for religious instruction classes? Isn’t that what evening Bible study and Sunday school is for?
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User YEP
• Facebook User: In our Ohio schools the children do not miss any instruction time. They go during lunch time and have active play time so their bodies also get the movement they need to reset.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User OH YEAH? In Ohio children are missing all sorts of instruction time. Ask a teacher. Go somewhere and sit down.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association in the district that has Lifewise in our church building this is what is happening.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User yeah right
• Facebook User: Of course they go. It’s a chance to screw around and do nothing.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User never mind the food, treats, swag, and bribes they are constantly offered.
• Facebook User: Why is this occurring during the school day? Plenty of time after school or weekends!
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User Exactly. There is plenty of time after school or on weekends. The reason these programs insist on operating during the school day is that they gain access to a captive audience of public-school children.

    During school hours, participation feels normalized, children see classmates leaving together, and families face pressure to join so their child is not excluded. After-school church programming would have to attract families on its own. Released-time religious instruction lets private ministries use the structure, schedule, and social environment of the public school day to advance their religious mission. It’s by design.

• Facebook User: They are all going to be fighting amongst themselves in no time. There will be doctrinal differences and I tell you, people take that seriously. I’ve seen it happen. 30 or more years ago the small rural school my late mother in law taught at received permission to host a Bible Club in the after school hours. A couple teachers volunteered and it was supposed to be just Bible study and prayer. It had to be discontinued very soon because people were fighting over mainly obscure doctrinal differences. Over who was going to hell or heaven. And these were people in a town where it was mainly mainline Protestants. You know. The Lutherans disagreeing with the Methodists. Fights were breaking out during school hours and that’s when it had to end. There is a reason we dont mix religion with school or work. We go to these places to learn and work. If you want religion, go to church. Bringing it to school or work only causes trouble, and they knew this 250 years ago.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User IF WE COULD LOVE THIS COMMENT ONE MILLION TIMES WE WOULD. But even better… would you allow us to publish this comment with no identifying information of yours? This is EXACTLY what is going to happen and if vouchers and standardized tests and defunding don’t destroy public education- this will be the nail in the coffin.
• Facebook User: When I was in high school, the school day was 7 hours start to finish, so 35 hours per week. That left me with 133 hours to pursue religious studies if I so chose.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User exactly. That’s a really good point. The length of the school day hasn’t changed much over the years, and students have always had far more time outside of school than inside it. No one is trying to prevent families from pursuing religious instruction. The question is why public schools are increasingly being asked to carve out time during the instructional day for outside religious organizations when students already have ample time before school, after school, evenings, weekends, and through their own houses of worship.
  • Facebook User: I’m protestant, and I don’t want to see schools taking time out of instructions for *any* religions, mine included.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User DITTO. We agree. And we have members from all sorts of faith traditions and none at all.
• Facebook User: This could be seen as penalizing the students who do not go by denying them time to learn. The question which keeps coming to my mind is why the parents who want their children to have religious education cannot seem to find the time to do it via Sunday school, taking them to church services on Sunday (or perhaps Saturday evening), or sending them at their expense to a church run school? Could even one parent in favour of Lifewise answer that question?
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User We hear all kinds of explanations—kids are too busy, churches can’t compete with sports, this is the only way to reach unchurched children, parents have a right to choose, and that it’s “just character education.” But notice what almost all of those arguments have in common: they explain why churches find the public school day to be the most effective recruiting opportunity. They don’t explain why public schools should be the ones making that opportunity possible.
• Facebook User: I have read cases where LifeWise has asked upper grades to let students count LifeWise sessions as electives into the curriculum.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User oh it’s absolutely already happening! This isn’t a future goal—it’s already happening in some districts. We’ve documented released-time religious instruction being approved for high school elective credit, bringing religious instruction even closer to the public school curriculum.
• Facebook User: It also takes staff time to check in and out EVERY student going and coming (for safety). Principals , secretaries and office staff as well as LUNCHROOM employees who must gather school lunches.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User YEP. It sure does. And when there are HUNDREDS of children leaving and returning at different times of the day- that’s a significant chunk of time, labor and public paid resources being used- by everyone you mentioned.
• Facebook User: Your school shouldn’t be allowing them to be released during content time…shame on them
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User shame on the lawmakers who created this situation—not the districts being forced to accommodate it. Ohio law now requires public schools to excuse students for released-time religious instruction.

    Ohio at least prohibits students from being pulled out of core subjects such as math, English language arts, science, and social studies. But not every state includes that protection in its law. In some places, released-time programs may be scheduled during core academic instruction unless a district adopts its own restrictions.

    And even in Ohio, “not a core class” does not mean “not instructional time.” Students can still miss specials, intervention, enrichment, electives, or other parts of the school day that are part of their education.

    That is why “it’s optional” does not end the conversation. The program may be optional for participating families, but the disruption it creates inside a public school is not optional for everyone else.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association this! Don’t shame the schools. They don’t want this any more than the parents!
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User absolutely!! MOST schools don’t want this any more than the parents but they feel they have their hands tied. We will say that, unfortunately way WAY more districts, administrators, superintendents, principals, and teachers are complicit than ANYONE should be comfortable with. We have the emails, the records, and the documentation to prove it. That’s the part that’s truly alarming.

    We also see recurring influence from organizations and ideologies associated with Christian nationalist movements—including Seven Mountains teachings in some instances—but that’s only one piece of a much larger network working to reshape public education.

• Facebook User: This happens in my kids school. Life wise is during specials and since so few kids (like mine) stay back, the specials teachers don’t want to move ahead so my kids do busy work. This is extremely annoying when my kids only get a specific special every four days, which means they are missing out on art and music instruction too essentially
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE. And this is exactly why this was bad law to begin with -but then when you franchise RTRI programs and they are pulling kids out en masse. ITS FAR FAR PAST THE INTENDED “PURPOSE” (if there ever was one) of this archaic law. Would you allow us to publish your above comment without any of your identifying information? We MUST shine a light on why this is so wrong and unconstitutional.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User I am a retired art teacher. 4 years elementary and 31years Jr. High. How insulting to the art, music and physical education teachers! We made lesson plans and taught skills, techniques, vocabulary, and concepts. Likewise claims they take the kids from lunch and recess, not from instruction. By what you describe, it sounds as though Lifewise is not telling the truth.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association yes anonymously
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User absolutely!
• Facebook User: Forcing their religious choice and it’s consequences on kids who are in public classrooms ready to learn. Yet they want us to believe they are being persecuted for their faith.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User YEP.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User no force.

    Also lack of persecution is good.

• Facebook User: It’s even worse with elementarys because the kids don’t have the study hall or the break in the day to go to the program, they are going to be behind the regular curriculum in someway. With high schools that’s the excuse lifewise uses is that they take kids during study halls and during breaks in the school day this is does not exist in schools under highschool
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User exactly this!
• Facebook User: This is extremely scary. As a Catholic, I find this very disturbing. If I send my child to public school, I expect everything to be secular, with absolutely no peer pressure to join something religious during the school day. If I want my child to have religious instruction, they can go to religion classes after school or go to a private school.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User YES. It is extremely scary. We have many faithful Catholic members, and our understanding is that the doctrine LifeWise teaches is not compatible with Catholic doctrine. Our website includes several letters from clergy explaining those conflicts.

    The particular strain of evangelical Christianity behind LifeWise has also historically taught that Catholics are not “real Christians.” Yet LifeWise presents itself as “non-denominational,” while numerous Catholic organizations donate to and support it.

    That contradiction deserves far more scrutiny.

  • Secular Education Association: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/mobile/folders/1iYr9n_bnzgkW0Cdvb4PoB35gD3S3cGtP?usp=drive_link

    Clergy letters for reference-

• Facebook User: No new instruction…. How about just fun stuff? Go outside, do crafts, snacks, take a nap, watch a movie? If the Lifewise kids can get snacks, and have fun time, the others should too.

  I live in Ohio and we have this in our elementary schools. I’m so thankful my son is in high school.

  However, there is also a fairly large push to get high schoolers to teen worship services after school and during the weekends. This is pushed by one of those “holier than thou” praise Jesus and fall to the floor with “the spirit” type of church.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User Oh they have HS curriculum too. George Lucas should sue somebody!
  • Facebook User: Maybe that needs to get to his people?!
• Facebook User: I hate Religious Indoctrination! Are the people in this religion so unhappy, desperate and ineffective that they have to go out and force their beliefs on Public Schools? Why don’t they homeschool their stupid kids?
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User interestingly enough… and overwhelming amount of people involved in this organization, including its founder and CEO, ALL HOMESCHOOL their children. 👀
• Facebook User: And if there is a “no instructional time”, that means that whatever instructional time would have occurred…isn’t happening for ANY students. Ultimately, it is a cut in instructional minutes. Because elementary schools don’t have study halls.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User YEP THAT
• Facebook User: Did you get your degree from the learing center because you aren’t telling the truth.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User misspellings and all huh? 💀
  • Facebook User: can you just stop. fake account and all.
    you know we have receipts and your continuous denial tells all.
• Facebook User: The teacher should not have to arrange their lesso s based on when kids WONT be there. They CHOOSE to go, they CHOOSE miss out on school lessons. The ones that stay should not get held back academically.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User 💯
• Facebook User: Is this statewide in Ohio? Or do individual districts or schools choose to adopt LifeWise or similar religious curricula?
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User Lifewise is NATIONWIDE. It began in Ohio. They can’t choose anything here. In Ohio our state legislature mandated our school districts to cooperate with ANY org that does this.

    Map.seculareducationassociation.org

  • Facebook User: Adam it started district by district, until Westerville cancelled over curriculum issues. Then the state passed a bill requiring all districts to make a policy to allow religious release time.

    In one district, the Satanic Church began the process to start a program.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User Ha, talk about getting more than they bargained for
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User actually, Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools was the first.

    In 2022, the district rescinded its released-time religious instruction policy, citing concerns about the loss of instructional time and disruption to the school day.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association noted. I heard about Westerville and celebrated. Hadn’t heard about Gahanna-Jefferson. Thanks for the clarification.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User We haven’t seen any updates on HAIL since it was announced in 2024. Is it still operating at Edgewood Elementary? We know LifeWise is still there, but I haven’t been able to find anything confirming HAIL is. If you have current information, we’d be interested to see it.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User I would love to see Islamic, Hebrew, Sikh, Buddhist, Ba’hai, Environmentalist, Atheist, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Comparative Religion, etc programs. At least then we wouldn’t be artificially feeding the christian-nationalist-or-nothing narrative. When it becomes actually fair and representative, they always claim persecution and usually back down.
  • Secular Education Association: In our opinion – We do not want public schools facilitating a dozen competing religious programs during the school day.

    “Equal access” on paper would not make this fair or representative. The organizations with the most money, churches, transportation, volunteers, and political infrastructure would still dominate—and children would still be divided by belief while classmates lose instructional time.

    Atheism and environmentalism are not religions, and comparative religion belongs in an academically neutral curriculum taught by qualified public-school educators—not in off-campus programs designed to form children in a particular worldview.

    Religious freedom does not require turning the public-school day into a marketplace for religious recruitment. It requires public schools to remain neutral and leave religious instruction to families and faith communities outside school hours.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association I mean, I don’t really think it should be more than secular… But I definitely don’t think it should be one minority religious sect as the only choice.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User we agree completely agree with your broader concern. Minority religious sect is not really an accurate description of what is happening here. This is conservative evangelical Christianity, using Southern Baptist–produced curriculum, backed by churches, national organizations, political allies, legal groups, and substantial funding.

    It may represent one particular branch of Christianity, but it is not marginalized or lacking power. And many Christians themselves do not share its theology. That imbalance is exactly why “just add more religions” does not solve the problem. The groups with the most money and infrastructure will still dominate the school day.

• Facebook User: As a former teacher, I assume that this disruption to the school day also makes transitioning back into the regular day time consuming.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User we’ve absolutely heard that many times. Both leaving and coming back.