🚨 YOUR SCHOOL BOARD CAN SAY NO — AND YOUR STATE CAN STILL TAKE THAT DECISION AWAY.
That is exactly what is happening with Released Time Religious Instruction (RTRI) in states across the country.
For years, many communities treated programs like LifeWise as a local decision. School boards could debate it, hear from parents and educators, and decide whether allowing students to leave during the school day for religious instruction made sense for their district.
Some boards said yes. 🚫 Some said no.
But lawmakers in multiple states have been changing the rules.
Instead of saying districts may allow released-time religious instruction, states are increasingly adopting laws that require schools to permit or excuse qualifying students for it.
And once that happens, a school board that previously voted LifeWise or another RTRI program down may no longer have the same authority to keep it out.
🚨That should concern people regardless of how they feel about LifeWise. Because this is also a local-control issue.
🚩 A community can hold meetings.
🚩 Parents can testify.
🚩 Teachers can raise concerns.
🚩 A locally elected school board can vote NO.
And then state lawmakers can change the law and effectively erase that decision.
Ohio has already demonstrated exactly how this can happen: districts that had ended their released-time policies later found themselves operating under a new statewide mandate requiring districts to adopt policies allowing qualifying released-time religious instruction.
And other states are moving in the same direction. North Carolina .. looking at y’all. 👀
So if someone tells you, “Don’t worry. Our school board already voted LifeWise down,” our advice is simple:
CHECK AGAIN.
The law that governed that vote two or three years ago may not be the law governing your district today. This is why watching your local school board is no longer enough.
You have to watch your state legislature, too.
👇 Use our RTRI State Law & Lobbying Map to see what the law currently says in your state:
https://seculareducationassociation.org/rtri-state-laws/
And if your district previously rejected LifeWise or another released-time program, we want to hear from you.
What people are saying:
- Facebook User: Separation of church and state. If you were accomplishing the goals on Sunday, this would not be a thing!!!
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User separation of church and state is right! But what has been twisted is the propaganda telling Christians that separation is somehow against Christianity.
It isn’t.
That separation protects Christians too. And increasingly, this doesn’t look like a fight about Christianity at all. It looks like a fight about power, money, and control — who gets access to public-school children, who gets public policy written in their favor, who gets to define “religious freedom,” and who benefits when government starts privileging one religious viewpoint over everyone else.
The “Christian nation” message is useful because it convinces faithful people that they are defending their religion, when in reality they may be helping build a system that gives enormous power to politicians, advocacy organizations, and religious institutions.
And once government is allowed to favor religion, the question becomes: whose religion? Whose church? Whose theology?
Religious freedom only works when government does not get to pick winners. 😬
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User separation of church and state is right! But what has been twisted is the propaganda telling Christians that separation is somehow against Christianity.
- Facebook User: This happened in Ohio. This happened to my school.
This is how Lifewise earned my animosity forever.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User SEVEN states since 2022.
* Indiana — 2024. Indiana changed its statute from the principal “may allow” a student to leave for religious instruction to “shall allow.” The older 2022 statute was expressly permissive.
• Oklahoma — 2024. HB 1425 requires school district boards to adopt a policy excusing qualifying students for released-time religious courses. The law allows up to three class periods per week, subject to statutory conditions.
* Ohio — 2025. HB 8 changed Ohio from a discretionary system to one requiring school boards to adopt a policy authorizing qualifying released-time religious instruction; it took effect April 9, 2025.
* Iowa — 2025. HF 870 created a statutory entitlement for qualifying religious-instruction absences during the school day, up to five hours weekly, and excludes those absences from chronic-absence calculations. Effective July 1, 2025.
* Montana — 2025. HB 343 changed the law from districts “may provide” released time to trustees “shall provide” it, with at least one hour per week.
* Texas — 2025. SB 1049 requires districts and open-enrollment charter schools, upon parental request and satisfaction of the statutory conditions, to excuse students for at least one and up to five hours per week and requires them to adopt a policy. Effective Sept. 1, 2025.
* North Carolina — 2026. SB 257 requires public-school units to adopt a policy requiring principals to excuse students for RTRI. A subsequent 2026 amendment clarified the required window as at least one but no more than four hours per week.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User SEVEN states since 2022.
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