LifeWise Academy is a Hilliard-based religious instruction program that started in 2019 and now enrolls 50,000 students across 29 states. (Photo by Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Ohio school districts will soon be required to have a religious release time policy, paving the way for an expansion of LifeWise Academy. While supporters praise it, some parents say their kids have been bullied for not participating, and point to school day disruption.
Gov. Mike DeWine recently signed House Bill 8 into law, a bill that mandates Ohio school districts to have a religious release time policy. The law takes effect in April. The state’s current law permits such a policy, but this will now require one.
LifeWise Academy, a controversial Hilliard-based religious instruction program, enrolls 50,000 students across 29 states — including about 160 Ohio school districts.
“LifeWise is just going to explode in Ohio,” said Rachel Snell, a former LifeWise volunteer.
The organization already has seen an enormous financial windfall. The Columbus Dispatch reported Tuesday that LifeWise netted a profit of over $17.2 million in its most recent IRS filing, up from $4.3 million the year before.
While religious organizations like the Center for Christian Virtue praise LifeWise, some parents criticize it — saying their student has been ostracized and bullied for not taking part in it and their education has suffered due to the disruption during the school day.
“They’re going to take over (Ohio school districts), for sure, because this bill was specifically passed for LifeWise,” said Zachary Parrish, a parent who had LifeWise file a lawsuit against him. “LifeWise is the one lobbying for this bill.”
LifeWise Founder and CEO Joel Penton testified in support of the religious release time legislation at the Ohio Statehouse and celebrated the bill signing.
“We will continue to get the word out about LifeWise, encourage families to learn more about the benefits of enrolling their children in our program and work with communities who want LifeWise to ensure the program is successfully implemented,” Penton said in an email.
A main critique of LifeWise that was brought up during opponent testimony at the Statehouse was why can’t they offer programming before or after school?
“Holding LifeWise during school hours makes it easier for them to incorporate faith into their child’s day,” Penton said. “Further, kids benefit from the Bible’s character lessons, which encourages good behavior during the school day.”
The United States Supreme Court upheld released time laws during the 1952 Zorach v. Clauson case, which allowed a school district to have students leave school for part of the day to receive religious instruction.
Religious release time instruction must meet three criteria: the courses must take place off school property, be privately funded, and students must have parental permission.
“She was told she was going to hell.”
Parrish said his daughter was bullied and ostracized by her classmates for not attending LifeWise Academy.
“She was told she was going to hell,” he said.
Penton, however, said students who attend LifeWise are “more cooperative, engaged and better behaved.”
Parrish now lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but his daughter was a second-grader in Defiance City Schools in 2021. Coming off the heels of remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his daughter was struggling to read and he opted not to send his daughter to LifeWise.
“I knew immediately my daughter wasn’t going to that because we’re not Christian,” he said. “I’m not going to send her to a program with people I don’t know during school. That’s crazy to me.”
Parrish’s daughter, along with the other students who didn’t attend LifeWise, were called “LifeWise leftovers.”
When her classmates would go to their weekly LifeWise classes, she went to a study hall in the gym to work independently.
“Why is my daughter being deprived of her educational time for this program?” Parrish said.
LifeWise filed a lawsuit against Parrish over the summer for copyright infringement, claiming he uploaded and shared LifeWise’s instructional materials.
“They were worried people were going to start their own program with their material,” Parrish said.
He filled out LifeWise’s application to be a volunteer which gave him access to their internal documents and curriculum, so he shared them online.
The lawsuit was recently settled.
“We dropped the lawsuit because Parrish has agreed to remove full versions of LifeWise curriculum from Facebook and elsewhere and will not distribute full copies,” Penton said.
LifeWise must now give access to its complete and current curriculum to anyone who requests it. However, LifeWise will only make the curriculum available for 48 hours at a time, but there is no limit on how many times the curriculum can be requested.
“We believe in transparency and have encouraged families and communities to learn more about LifeWise and the positive impact of Bible-based character education,” Penton said. “Our concern has always been ensuring that the parameters of our licensing agreement with the publisher of the curriculum are followed.”
Parrish said the settlement was a good win.
“The main thing was always that we wanted parents to be able to read the curriculum,” he said. “Before I posted it, they weren’t letting anybody see it.”
Eaton Schools
Eaton Community Schools in Preble County had an after-school LifeWise program for three years, Rachel Snell said.
“It was very hush-hush,” Snell said, recalling how people would cringe when she said she volunteered at Eaton. “I felt like the illegitimate child that we actually don’t talk about at all.”
She volunteered with the LifeWise program in Eaton Schools for a year and a half and one of her children attended their LifeWise program.
LifeWise tried to transition to during the school day last spring, but the district’s school board did not want it during the day so the district’s program ended in the spring, she said.
“Eaton was an experimental program which helped us develop the model we have today,” Penton said. “We do not have any before or after school programs.”
Even though Snell supports religious release time, she wrote a letter to DeWine asking him to veto H.B. 8.
“I don’t think we need a new law,” she said. “I don’t think that LifeWise is the program that I want doing all of them.”
Ashland Schools LifeWise
Ashland City Schools has had LifeWise in their district for about three and a half years and about 300 elementary and middle school students attend LifeWise classes. The district doesn’t offer it at the high school level.
“The piece that is missing in public school is we don’t offer a class that you can have those conversations that you’re loved by a higher power, and those real kind of spiritual conversations that you have to kind of shy away from,” said Ashland City School Superintendent Steve Paramore. “Religious release time, I believe, can fill that void.”
Kindergarten through fifth grade students typically attend LifeWise during their library and STEMM special class and the middle school students attend LifeWise during their lunch time, he said.
LifeWise has positively impacted Ashland Schools, Paramore claimed.
“I do believe that the students that have attended do come back relatively excited about the time that they spent there,” he said. “We’ve not seen any adverse situations. To me, it’s a win-win situation, and they’ve been nothing but a benefit to our district.”
Fredericktown LifeWise
Two of Dawne Knoch Anthony’s daughters attend LifeWise classes, but neither of them want to go. Knoch Anthony doesn’t even want her daughters to go, but her ex-husband gave his permission for the girls to go to LifeWise, so they attend LifeWise’s weekly class at a nearby church.
“If they want to go, that would be one thing,” Knoch Anthony said.
LifeWise said they accept permission slips from either the custodial parent or the legal guardian of the student.
“In the case of a split custody arrangement, LifeWise accepts the permission slip from either parent,” Penton said. “Just like any other extracurricular activity, LifeWise leaves it to the parents to decide if their child will attend.”
Knoch Anthony has a sixth grader and a fourth grader in Fredericktown Local Schools in Knox County. The sixth grader goes to LifeWise during her study hall and the fourth grader goes during one of her recesses.
“We don’t want (LifeWise) to disrupt our children’s school day, and that’s what (LifeWise is) doing,” Knoch Anthony said. “These girls are pressured to try to get other kids to join, so now my kids are asked to proselytize, and that’s not part of the school day.”
Follow OCJ Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky.
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