What people are saying:

• Secular Education Association: SOURCE: The Toledo Blade, September 16, 2026.

  These are not our words or our interpretation of what Superintendent Durant meant. The quotes above are his own: “These kids need the Lord” and “we’re going to have church service going on there as well.”

  Read the full reporting here:

  https://www.toledoblade.com/local/education/2026/09/16/superintendent-durant-talks-future-of-tps-at-african-american-legacy-project-pat/stories/20260918004

  We’ll be watching closely for clarification from Facebook User about exactly what is being proposed, who will operate it, and what role the public school district will have.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association Durant is a Judas. I have always suspected he was an opportunist. That has been confirmed. This is a terrifying development. Sending the children of his district directly down the Nationalist / War Machine pipeline is criminal. What a traitor.
• Facebook User: 😰
• Facebook User: Fellowship with the presence of God is ALWAYS a good thing….
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User would you say the same if it wasn’t your God?
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association I believe there is only ONE God and yes. Not saying it should forced on anyone. I’m sure students will be able to opt-out if they choose. Too many things wrong with the world and negative influences for us to have a problem with Jesus being introduced or reinforced. There is very little downside. Again, if someone has different beliefs they should opt out
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User this is precisely the problem.

    You believe there is only one God. You are entitled to that belief. But public schools serve families who believe in different gods, understand God differently, or do not believe in a god at all.

    “We’ll introduce and reinforce my religion, and everyone else can opt out” is not religious neutrality. It makes Christianity the default and places the burden on everyone else to identify themselves and leave.
    And children should not have to opt out of their public-school experience to avoid government-sponsored religious messaging.

    If there is truly “very little downside” because Christianity is good for children, you have moved well beyond defending someone’s individual right to pray. You are arguing that a public institution should promote a particular religion because you believe that religion is beneficial.

    That’s the entire point. And the exercise is to put yourself into someone else’s shoes- not make excuses for your heavy footprints.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association it’s not an excuse. I would go as far as saying there is only one but I don’t want to argue and be respectful. We don’t know what the introduction will look like. Instead of shutting it down immediately how about have an open mine and look at this as another way to try to improve things. If it doesn’t work then scrap it.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User , an “open mind” does not require a public school to experiment with promoting a religion to see whether it improves children.

    You’ve now said you believe there is only one God, that there is “very little downside” to Jesus being introduced or reinforced, that families with different beliefs can opt out, and that the school should try it and “scrap it” if it doesn’t work. That is precisely the concern. Public schools are not laboratories for testing whether government promotion of Christianity produces better students.

    You are completely free to believe Christianity improves lives and to teach it to your own children. Christian students and employees retain their own rights to religious expression. But a public school serves everyone. It does not get to establish Christianity as the experiment and ask everyone else to keep an “open mind” while we see how it goes.

    And if the proposed “improvement” requires introducing children to Jesus, then we’re no longer talking about an educational intervention. We’re talking about religious formation. That belongs to families and faith communities—not the public school system. How would you like another faith to experiment on your child? Would you be ok to just opt out of that?

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association if they had a service teaching a religion I did not practice my children would not attend. It’s very simple if you’re not interested don’t participate. There’s no need to over complicate it. Anytime Jesus is brought into the conversation it naturally brings opposition. I understand that, opposing views are not demonized either. Yet and still same as you and others feel it’s crossing a line. I feel that it’s alright. We will not see eye to eye on this matter and I’m fine with that. Be blessed 🙏🏿
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User so your children simply wouldn’t attend TPS?

    Because that’s the public institution we’re talking about. Not a church. Not an optional Sunday service. Their public school.

    You keep saying, “If you don’t like the religion being introduced, don’t participate.” Okay—how exactly does a child opt out when the superintendent of their public-school district says “these kids need the Lord” and talks about bringing Jesus into the schools? Do they opt out of the superintendent? The school culture? Assemblies? Classrooms? Their district?

    This is exactly why “just opt out” is such a lazy answer. You’re comfortable with Christianity being made the default because it’s your Christianity. Everyone else is expected to identify themselves, object, and remove their children from whatever religious activity their public school decided to introduce.

    Public education doesn’t work that way. Christian children don’t have to opt out of Islam. Muslim children don’t have to opt out of Christianity. Jewish children don’t have to opt out of either. Nonreligious children don’t have to opt out of religion altogether.
    The government stays out of the business of deciding which religion children “need.”

    You don’t have to “see eye to eye” with anyone about that principle. But “I feel that it’s alright” is not an answer to the church-state issue being raised.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User how does a child and parent opt out of the targeting Lifewise does via recruitment on school property? When it turns to bullying and ostracization due to lessons Lifewise teaches? Should that be allowed?
    example: Bad Behavior vs Good Behavior. Asks kids to reconsider their friendships. Antisemitic trope on page.
    Lesson on video:
    https://youtu.be/fsTD14fGFIs?is=bd-JPWfv2OLfalHX
• Facebook User: The Lord isn’t going to get them reading and writing. The Lord isn’t going to improve their career opportunities. Hoping and praying isn’t going to teach you how to read.

  Let’s keep schools focused on the formal education and keep Sunday School on Sunday.

• Facebook User: Stay in your lane, Mr. Durant. Get those scores up and improve state rankings before you branch out into theology.
• Facebook User: Facebook User would you care to weigh in on this?
  • Facebook User: Facebook User that was a lot of words for not answering the question.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User Thank you for responding. We absolutely agree that Ohio public education is facing enormous challenges at the Statehouse and beyond, and we appreciate your clear statement that a board member’s personal religious beliefs do not govern their public role—the Constitution does.

    Where we differ is in treating concerns about church-state separation within a district as something that could distract from the “bigger picture.” This is part of the bigger picture.

    We are watching legislation across the country that changes how religion interacts with public schools—from released-time religious instruction and chaplain legislation to religious displays, curriculum mandates, vouchers, and other measures. What happens locally matters too. The conduct and messaging of superintendents and boards can establish norms long before a bill ever reaches a vote.

    No one is asking board members to abandon the other enormous problems facing public education. We are asking them to recognize that protecting public schools as institutions serving children of every faith and no faith is one of those problems—not a distraction from them. And frankly, by the time something becomes a major controversy before a school board, the opportunity to address it early has often already passed.

  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User we don’t think Rachel was saying she didn’t understand your statement. She was saying the statement did not answer the question that was asked. Those are different things.

    You explained what issues you consider priorities and acknowledged that you and Dr. Durant may have different perspectives. But you never actually said whether you agree or disagree with his statement—the issue that prompted the question in the first place.

    Asking an elected board member for a direct answer to a direct question isn’t a failure to understand a “professional tone.”

  • Facebook User: Facebook User
    I recently moved from the Toledo area, but care deeply for the community. I have been researching LifeWise for two years. Typically, this is the religious instruction that is brought into school districts, and it is rampant in Ohio. I also have concerns about the potential privatization of sports.
    My ex significant other is the founder of Toledo Elementary Athletics Movement and I helped write his mission statement. On the surface, it is a good organization, providing a service that was not there for the elementary schools. Recently, and before the school closures, Mr. Durant reached out and offered a meeting to the founder of TEAM to discuss the possibility of privatization of junior high and high school sports. This offloading of responsibility in this manner is a direct threat to the civil rights of students. When I voiced my concern, I was met with hostility and the founder of TEAM told me he did not care. I only share this private information because desperate times call for desperate measures, and our children deserve to have their representatives defend and protect them.

    ⚠️ TURNING POINT USA AND LIFEWISE ACADEMY PARTNER TO TARGET PUBLIC SCHOOLS ⚠️

    📊 Show Me the Money: Explosive, Multimillion-Dollar Revenue Growth
    The financial engine behind LifeWise Academy is moving massive amounts of capital. According to LifeWise Academy’s official IRS Form 990 filings, the organization raised more than $39.2 million in a single fiscal year.
    To put this trajectory into perspective, look at how rapidly their revenue has expanded from a small operation into a multi-million dollar juggernaut:
    2018: ~$600,000 in total contributions.
    2023: ~$14 million in total revenue.
    2024: ~$35 million in total revenue.
    Recent IRS Filing: $39,235,934 in total revenue.
    This means in just a handful of years, LifeWise transformed from a localized program into a nearly $40 million national operation. Much of this money is concentrated in large-scale individual donations—including a single anonymous $13.17 million gift routed through the American Endowment Foundation—which funds aggressive lobbying efforts ($208,000 spent on lobbying in a single year) to legally force public school districts into granting them access.

    📌 Corporate Sponsorship and Shared Events
    LifeWise Academy has functioned as an official financial sponsor for Turning Point USA’s Believers’ Summit. This brings LifeWise into direct, paid alignment with TPUSA’s core religious-political organizing events.

    📌 Joint Strategic Operations and Outreach
    LifeWise executives actively utilize Turning Point USA’s platform and events to recruit and mobilize activists. During TPUSA’s “America Fest,” LifeWise COO/CFO Steve Clifton presented the group’s strategy to attendees, explaining how they leverage legal structures to strategically evangelize public schools.

    📌 Overlapping Financial Backers
    Both organizations draw resources from the same right-wing funding ecosystem. A primary example is Patriot Mobile, a conservative wireless company and political action committee. Patriot Mobile explicitly funds far-right school board takeovers and simultaneously serves as a key financial sponsor and partner for both Turning Point USA and LifeWise Academy’s national summits.

    📌 Shared Institutional Pipelines
    Both groups are heavily backed by the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council, which are primary architects of the Project 2025 platform. The Heritage Foundation awarded LifeWise its “Innovation Prize” and routinely uses its media apparatus—alongside the Family Research Council—to feature LifeWise leadership and advance their shared institutional goals.

    📌 Unified Legislative Strategies
    The political ecosystem surrounding both groups works in tandem. In Ohio, far-right legislative pushes driven by the political networks connected to Charlie Kirk directly align with bills written to mandate public school access for Released Time Religious Instruction (RTRI) programs, ensuring school boards cannot legally block groups like LifeWise from entering the district.

    🚨 The “Two Wings of the Same Bird” Blueprint
    While they are separate legal entities, they function like two wings of a single organism executing a coordinated, top-down strategy to dismantle the separation of church and state in public education.

    The Political Wing (Turning Point USA): Targets public high schools and colleges from the outside in. It creates political chaos, attacks teachers’ unions, organizes right-wing school board takeovers, and pushes state legislation to loosen restrictions on religion in secular schools.
    The Cultural Wing (LifeWise Academy): Targets public elementary schools from the inside out. It markets itself quietly as a harmless “character education” program. Instead of fighting the school, it exploits the legal loopholes created by the political wing to physically pull students out of the school day, establishing a parallel religious hierarchy inside public education.
    The Bottom Line: One clears the path politically and legally, while the other drives a multi-million dollar bus straight through the opening to indoctrinate young children. Both are fueled by the exact same dark money donor network.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User I understood exactly what you didn’t say. You deflected answering the question by pointing to other issues that aren’t relevant. I appreciate your professionalism, but that shouldn’t absolve you from answering a simple question.
• Facebook User: Kind of takes the “public” out of “public schools”, doesn’t it?
• Facebook User: I just moved away from Toledo and I had the inside scoop on the district trying to privatize their sports program. A nonprofit serves the elementary schools now and Durant recently approached the founder of that organization about taking on middle school and high school sports.
  Once that happens, the children and the community will lose rights and protections. IDEA is in grave danger civil rights are in danger, and this is an intentional sabotage of the public school system.
• Facebook User: Bro. Your district just got a 2 star rating. They don’t need religion, they need better leadership. Durant just signed a 5 year contract through July 2031. So disappointing.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Second highest paid superintendent in Ohio. And they just fired all their librarians and nurses last year due to funding cuts. And they are asking for a giant levy this fall. What a mess.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User That’s what I was thinking! And was he suggesting people are moving from all over the country and even internationally to attend TPS??
• Facebook User: Don’t preach in my schools, and I won’t think in your church.
• Facebook User: It’ll be done with LifeWise Academy
  • Facebook User: Facebook User what will??
  • Facebook User: Facebook User this dumbass anti-constitutional idea of church in school?
• Facebook User: Belief that supernatural forces have any impact on human activity is not a sober view of reality in the 21st century. Indoctrinate your children as you wish, on your own time and your own dime.
• Facebook User: How many Lifewise employees are pedophiles?
• Facebook User: We literally know that just because you were raised up in a church, doesn’t mean that you can’t be a bad person.. like what the f*** is going on.. every damn day there’s another church leader that has been arrested for child sex abuse
• Facebook User: “Holy” safe spaces snowflakes.