What people are saying:

• Secular Education Association: So stop telling us “it’s optional.” It isn’t. 🙄😡

  A child may be opted out of the religious program, but they are not opted out of its impact.

  They still lose educational time. Their classroom is still disrupted. They may still be left behind with little or nothing meaningful to do. And they are still exposed to the invitations, proselytizing, social pressure, and exclusion that come with a program built into the public-school day.

  And be honest: if the shoe were on the other foot—if your child were being affected by a religious program you had explicitly chosen not to participate in—you would LOSE YOUR ENTIRE MIND. Don’t come here telling us otherwise either. Save yourself the trouble because we aren’t buying it.

  Opting out should mean opting out. PERIOD.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association government schools are garbage.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User you’re likely a product of public schools. Hush up and sit down.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Associationlolol…bless you little, ignorant heart …I have never been to a government school, nor has my child…I love him too much to send him to one….so mind your manners, sweetie.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User explains your grammar. And do you claim to be a Christian too? O, but you just love your kid more than 90% of families? You’re one to talk about manners, sweetie.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User so parents who use public education don’t love their children? Also can we talk about why you believe government schools are garbage because I guarantee it leads back to either funding or propaganda or your “own research” that actually is a bunch of made up FB posts.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association. Silly goose…and yes…I love my child more than those who subject their children to government schools..in addition, my grammar is perfectly adequate for the level of comments you make…but thank you anyway, sweetie.
• Facebook User: Im educating mine at home. I vote against the levies and funding increases. Public school has become a joke and I don’t need the free babysitter bad enough to participate. Unless that bible is written in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew it doesn’t make a good school text book. Im using a side by side Italian-English edition of Dante’s Inferno for Italian lessons though.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User Educating your own child at home does not excuse you from caring what happens to everyone else’s children.

    Homeschooling is a choice. Having the time, money, health, and flexibility to do it is often a privilege. Voting against school funding because your family does not personally need the service is the same selfish logic as refusing to fund libraries because you buy your own books.

    Public education is not “free babysitting.” It is part of the basic civic infrastructure that communities owe their children.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association “…caring what happens to everyone else’s children.” That is the absolute essence of what divides us.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association you misread.. I vote against funding because it is wasted.
• Facebook User: The kids who opt out of LGBT stuff feel the same.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User keep driving our reach with your bullshit. There’s no LGBT stuff to opt out of, you hate spreading, absolute moron.
• Facebook User: This post is laughable. The pearl clutching that a majority of the kids in this hypothetical class WANT to learn about Jesus. And the two kids left behind get undivided attention from their teacher – oh no!
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User what is laughable is your ignorance. Their education is stopped, waiting for the kids who left. What don’t you understand about that? What if it was something you didn’t want your child to participate in and their education STOPPED for it. You’d be clutching more than your pearls. Shut it.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User the majority of the kids want toys and snacks while being indoctrinated.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association plus it prevents them from projects or tasks they do with their classmates in a group setting.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User this is a parent story. If it was your child, you’d feel the same.
• Facebook User: How about giving them 1:1 or 1:2 attention and encouraging them to be leaders?
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User how about continuing your lesson and their education, exactly as planned. And the happy accident IS 1:1 or 1:2 attention. This was NEVER supposed to interrupt or stop regular instruction from happening.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association agreed
• Facebook User: Thank God. This is wonderful news.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User would you say the same if it were your child being left behind and whose education was impacted? Very Christian of you. Jesus would hate your guts.
  • Facebook User: Your child is certainly welcome. More Education is good.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User sir. Would you say the same about YOUR child coming to our religious service or instruction?
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association My child would be one of the two in the class room. I was that child when I was in High school The other kids went to what was then called “Religious instruction” I did not. I did home work and read a book. I enjoyed the time and learned a lot
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User NO. You should not have had your education interrupted for ANY religion. How can you not see how that’s STILL WRONG, when you experience it yourself? It is still called religious instruction, that’s the RI in RTRI. Now you can lie and say you enjoyed it- but it doesn’t matter- the kids getting to leave school and get prizes and treats – they also enjoy it. And sometimes the kids left behind- aren’t even old enough to read or independently do “homework”. So what then?
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association I didn’t lie. I think most people would rather have time to do home work in school and have there evening free.

    If you have worked in the government school system as I did for 10 years you know school time is not valuable. Most of it is wasted. Everything that is taught in a government high school day can be learned in 2.5 hrs tops.

    If a kid is old enough to go to school they are old enough to play by them selves under supervision. That tends to happen around 2.f years old.

  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User no real teacher would EVER EVER write out the words “school time is not valuable”. Now you have no credibility at all AND you’re a hypocrite.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association I worked in schools in 13 districts repairing equipment in classrooms. I saw what was happening first hand. That is why I never sent my children to a government school.

    As a aside You have guessed about me three times. You are not good at it.

  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User oh we assumed you would have had a substantial part in the school day to even be able to make such a statement. Our mistake. 🙄 keep driving our reach though.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association One way students learn is by listening and observing. I had a great opportunity to listen and observe. I found that I can tell the difference between teaching / learning, baby sitting, bringing to order, losing control, class change, study halls, and do nothing teachers.
• Facebook User: This is a Christian vs Christian issue as well. The “optional” time will be controlled by the sect with the most $$$ and political power. That means they will be teaching other Christian children the beliefs specific to the program controllers denomination beliefs. That leaves a child being left behind and being tagged as “not Christian” or being peer pressured to go because the prevailing attitude is that “all Christians are the same.” Interestingly, many people don’t realize – even Christians – that the people in charge of the program will be telling your child that you are teaching them the wrong Christianity if your beliefs are different than theirs. Just an example: Are you “saved” if you were sprinkled instead of dunked? Who are you allowed to pray for at these meetings – and who are you NOT allowed to pray for? I just felt I needed to add an perspective beyond the Christian-not Christion isolationism a child feels when such an “optional” program is part of the public corriculum. We tried prayer in public schools when we first added “under God” to the pledge. It created a hostile environment among the adults when they realized it wasn’t going to result in the “God loves everyone” generic kind of faith experience so that practice was short-lived.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User YES YES YES. Thank you for adding this perspective. You are absolutely correct. And the VERY interesting thing we can add to your comment is that MANY of these RTRI programs (including Lifewise) claim they are “non-denominational” but many Christians can tell you the problem with that label… 👀 it just isn’t accurate. We believe it’s purposefully deceptive- to lure in and use well-meaning, faithful people to further THEIR GOALS – without explaining that their actual doctrine and worldview don’t include them, even as “Christians”. Catholic & Lifewise is a great example here. We constantly see Catholic orgs, churches, and people – working for and volunteering and donating to Lifewise…. But they very very specifically don’t believe that Catholics are “real Christians”. Of course they aren’t gonna tell you that at the interest meeting! But they will take your money and your free labor- and then tell your children things that your doctrine explicitly diverts with them on. YOU NAILED IT.
• Facebook User: Separation of church and state!!!
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Nice incomplete sentence. Doesn’t apply here
• Facebook User: Secular Education Association, what program is being referred to in this post?
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User Great question! The parent told us this was “not LifeWise”, and we published the quote exactly as it was submitted. So the answer is we aren’t sure. BUT, and this is for anyone else reading who may not be familiar — the issue isn’t unique to any one organization, we hear this same exact sentiment daily.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association are you aware of any other programs besides lifewise? If so, could you share the names with us? I’d just like to prep for anything else that may be coming. Thanks!
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User yes we are! Some are only regional. Or district specific even. We are doing our best to compile a list of the most common RTRI programs.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association There’s a regional program in our area and I was one in a classroom on the day when the the program met. I remember being in a 3rd grade classroom with 15 students towards the end of the day. The teacher was going to continue the lesson during their Math-Science doubleblock period when suddenly 3 students were pulled to work with the Special Ed Intervention Specialist, 1 was pulled for Speech therapy, 1 was pulled for Physical Therapy, and 5 left for the 30 min religious class, leaving the teacher with a total of 5 kids left in the class, so they just worked on IXL.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User Thank you for sharing this example. Teachers are already coordinating legally required special education services, speech, physical therapy, and other educational supports throughout the day. Those services are part of providing students with disabilities an appropriate public education.

    That is exactly why adding a separate, privately operated religious program to the school-day schedule deserves scrutiny. The concern should not be that children receive the educational services they need. It is that schools are layering an optional religious pullout onto an already complex instructional day, with consequences for the students who leave and those who remain.

• Facebook User: Lifewise is harming the public schools.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User 💯
• Facebook User: Should not be happening during school hours. Why can’t they meet after school?
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User agreed! And interestingly enough – They can! And they have before, at least one other time we have record of. But the why really comes down to using the public school system as a pipeline to convert. LifeWise’s own vision statement describes students in public schools as its “mission field.” 👀😡
• Facebook User: Play rhem some Christopher Hitchens tapes
• Facebook User: Teacher should have a great party every week. Then give children who stayed back get extra credit for having such a good time.
• Facebook User: The seminal book on this topic: Katherine Stewart’s “The good news club”
  Read about it on KatherineStewart.me
• Facebook User: It’s only a matter of supervision. However the school wants to provide adult oversight, they do. Then let the children play or do whatever the other kids are doing Just NOT religious focus. Snacks if the majority are getting snacks. Stickers and take home rewards, etc. If the school won’t provide the EQUAL, then ask for something MORE attractive to the students. Screen time or card games or fun crafts, etc. Ask for volunteers to help so each child has a mentor or friend.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User great idea
• Facebook User: I lived in a catholic community growing up. We had release time on Wednesdays at 2:30 for religious instruction. Not every year, just the two years prior to first communion. It was normal, I dont think anyone was ever upset by it. The teacher could use the time to do special projects with the student left behind.
• Facebook User: Maybe let those “left behind” children do something fun that all the other children would be envious of. Then those children would hound their parents to let them do that instead of the religious indoctrination training.
• Facebook User: This seems like a teachers dream come true. Small class size. WOW Use the time. Teach them something.
• Facebook User: SUE the school!
  • Facebook User: Facebook User anyone can sue anyone but it makes more sense if the school is doing something wrong. They aren’t
• Facebook User: Forcing your religion on children is evil. Forcing it on other people’s children is monstrously evil.
• Facebook User: Get religion OUT of Public Schools …
  Are religious parents now so inept at indoctrinating their children at home and in church that they need to force their will on Public Schools? There are plenty of christian Homeschool associations, they should just go there!!!
• Facebook User: And it also means that instead of special area class time being a planning/set up/go to the bathroom time for the teacher, those few students now need to do SOMETHING-because the school replaced a special area class like Library, PE, music, art…something taught by a certified teacher where all the kids went-with this “optional” time.
• Facebook User: This is not true.