🚨UPDATE: Faith Life Church & the Keesees 🚨 Back in February, we shared information about the serious allegations and the growing investigation involving Faith Life Church in New Albany — the church led by Gary and Drenda Keesee, who are also well-known financial and ideological supporters of LifeWise Academy. This week, NBC4 reported that a… Read More

SEA was honored to join a breakout session at Interfaith Alliance’s Religious Freedom in Public Schools Summit. We were grateful to share the space with Anita Davis, Associate Director of Kentucky Citizens for Democracy, who’s been organizing powerfully in her community. In our session, we covered: what Released-Time Religious Instruction (RTRI) is, how state laws… Read More

SEA’s focus has always been keeping the public-school day secular, inclusive, and evidence-based. That means we don’t just watch Released-Time programs like LifeWise—we also track bills that try to slip ideological or religiously driven content into classrooms under the banner of “science” or “character.” Ohio’s “Baby Olivia Act” is a clear example: it would require… Read More

🚨 STATEMENT ON HB 57 🚨 What began as a bipartisan, life-saving bill to let schools carry overdose-reversal medication was hijacked in the Ohio Senate by lawmakers who quietly slipped in a gift to released-time religious programs. Instead of debating it in the open, they buried an amendment that lets districts expand how much class… Read More

🤝 Stronger Together, Smarter Together 🤝 At SEA, we’re thrilled to see so many parents, educators, and advocates raising awareness about protecting public schools. That momentum is exactly what we hoped to spark. But awareness is most powerful when it’s accurate and when we work together.SEA has spent years building research, contacts, and resources to… Read More

🚨 Update on LifeWise’s court filing:LifeWise is telling the Ohio Supreme Court that—because it’s a religious organization—it has a “clear legal right to finality” over its employment decisions, free from review by a “secular tribunal.” It also accuses the former employee of “continuous, unrepentant” misconduct under its handbook. 🔎 In plain terms:LifeWise is telling the… Read More

🚨 Indiana — Muncie Area 🚨 Tomorrow (Thu, Oct 2) from 6–8 PM, join the Secular Education Association at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie for “Protecting Public Schools from Religious Influence.” We’ll cover: • LifeWise and other school-day religious programs • How we got here (the history + the players) • What these efforts… Read More

🚨OHIO🚨 ACTION ALERT: HB 57 Expands Religious Released-Time During the Public School Day 🚨 Ohio lawmakers just passed Sub. HB 57 — a bill that rewrites the state’s released-time statute to let districts excuse students for much more of the school day to attend off-campus religious programs such as LifeWise Academy. ⚠️ How it passed:… Read More

🚨 PARENTS: WATCH FOR “MAGIC SHOW” PITCHES IN SCHOOLS 🚨 This week at Harmon Middle School in Pickerington Ohio- parents reported that an “illusion show” was brought into a public-school assembly as a program about bullying and peer pressure.That part seemed harmless — until every child went home with a free family ticket to a… Read More

🚨 “First bribe of the year 🤗” — straight from an Ohio specials teacher. This is how LifeWise kicks off the school year: cookies shaped like their red bus, with a cheerful note hoping the program will continue to be a “blessing” to the staff. Let’s be clear: public-school teachers don’t need sweets from a… Read More

🚨 BREAKING: Ohio’s HB 486 — the “Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act” — is a Christian-nationalist push to rewrite history inside public classrooms. Ohio lawmakers just introduced HB 486, a bill that would require public schools to teach a one-sided, “positive” history of Christianity in America — while ignoring the harm done in Christianity’s name,… Read More

🚨KENTUCKY – pay attention! We hope you’re following Kentucky Citizens for Democracy.🚨 View original post on Facebook Read More

“Yet again, President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission demonstrated that its true purpose is to advance a Christian Nationalist agenda and impose one narrow religious view on the nation’s public school children. The speakers at today’s hearing made that clear – from the former high school football coach whose attorneys spun what one federal judge called… Read More

In a recent interview with The Statehouse News Bureau, LifeWise CEO Joel Penton said he “doesn’t hear ‘real reports’ of children who attend LifeWise ostracizing others who don’t.” That dismissive line is one we hear again and again from LifeWise supporters as they try to discredit the documented accounts of bullying and exclusion that this… Read More

🚨 This Is What Happens When the Debate Gets Personal Instead of Civil 🚨 In Salem and Richfield, Ohio; neighbors who’ve raised concerns about LifeWise Academy and who simply put up yard signs — “Revere Citizens AGAINST LifeWise Academy” and a campaign sign for Heather Smith, a school-board candidate who hosted SEA at a recent… Read More