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A right-wing legal group is threatening to sue Ohio public school districts if they prevent Christian ministries from using candies and toys to help kids lure their classmates to the religious lessons. They say such policies violate the ministries’ First Amendment rights.
This comes on the heels of a new Ohio law that requires all districts to let kids skip part of the school day to attend religious classes.
In case you’re already lost, here’s some background: Like other states, Ohio allows students to take advantage of “released time,” a portion of the school day when they can attend religious classes at an off-campus location. LifeWise Academy is the most well-known organization taking advantage of this. LifeWise takes care of the curriculum, staff, and background checks; local chapters (usually churches) can tap into the network for use in their own local public school districts. Students then go to those churches during the school day, get their dose of biblical indoctrination, then return to school for the rest of the afternoon.
The front page of LifeWise’s website brags about Bible classes offered during the school day (screenshot via LifeWise)
Technically, “released time” policies are religiously neutral. Any organization is allowed to offer these classes to students. Parents have to opt in to letting their kids participate. No school funds are used for them. For example, if students are transported to a local church for these lessons, the church has to pay for the buses. Students also have to make up any missed assignments. They also can’t skip certain core classes, like English or math.
The idea of kids being allowed to skip school for religious indoctrination is so appealing to Republicans that earlier this year, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law House Bill 8, known as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” While offering “released time” had been optional for school districts, that bill made it mandatory. That was a huge gift to Christian Nationalists since it’s usually evangelical/Catholic churches that have the resources to offer these courses and pay for the costs associated with them.
That also means every school board in the state now needs to adopt a policy for how to handle “released time” in their districts. Those policies obviously need to be legally sound. So how do you find the right language to use? Simple: Work with an organization that specializes in public school policies and just use whatever they give you.
That’s what North East Ohio Learning Associates (NEOLA) does. They advise school districts on what policies they should adopt to meet “an ever-evolving legal landscape.”
When it came to “released time,” NEOLA already had a sample policy in place, but after HB 8 passed, they sent a revised version to all of their clients.
It included several big changes:
For example, in the past, the guidance said students could not skip a “core curriculum subject class” in order to attend religious indoctrination class. The new guidance defines a “core” class as one that is “graded.”
There’s also language about how much time kids can skip school for any district that wants to make sure students aren’t missing an inordinate amount of class.
Released time instruction will be limited to ____ [ENTER NUMBER] day(s) per school _____ [QUARTER, SEMESTER, YEAR, ETC.], as established by the Superintendent, and shall not exceed ________ [ENTER AMOUNT] minutes, inclusive of travel.
Then there’s language about how to handle background checks: The religious groups have to pay for them and provide proper documentation to the district. If they don’t do what the district needs, schools could refuse to release students to those groups.
NEOLA actually offers two possible policies for this, depending on how strict the district wants to be.
Finally, there’s a section banning ministries from giving kids bribes to lure their classmates:
Any private entity providing religious instruction during the school day must agree that it will not provide participating students with any materials, snacks, clothing, candies, trinkets, or other items for their return to school. The District will not release students for religious instruction release time to any private provider that fails to adhere to this prohibition.
I’ve written before about why this kind of rule is so important, but let me repeat it: If your friends are taking a Bible course, and getting prizes and candy while they’re there, you’re going to want to go, too. That’s not illegal, but it’s another strain on families who are religious minorities. It’s bad enough to consider a scenario where only Muslim or Jewish students are sitting in class because their Christian peers have gone off to church. It’s even worse when those kids decide they want to take the classes—and beg their parents to allow them to go—because their classmates are returning to school with tiny bribes. It’s all very coercive.
When that Columbus school district adopted this policy, LifeWise said the change wouldn’t have an effect on what they do… which is what you’d expect them to say. But you had to believe they were disappointed that their greatest marketers—the kids in their classes—no longer had these weapons at their disposal.
At the end of the sample text, NEOLA notes that the law offers no real guidelines on how to handle “Released Time,” therefore districts are better off adopting flexible, less-restrictive policies.
Again, all of this was just guidance. School districts could take it or leave it.
But that guidance infuriated Republicans who saw it as an attempt to minimize the new law. Last week, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yostsent a letter to school boards saying they should not just accept guidance from groups trying to “thwart the new law.” Yost didn’t mention NEOLA specifically, but he said he had noticed several “policy pitfalls” in what some districts were doing.
One of them was the No Trinket policy. Yost said those rules “would prohibit sharing literature like memory cards, devotional lesson books, or even Bibles,” therefore districts should avoid any language of the sort.
Now the right-wing legal group First Liberty is piggybacking on that letter, writing their own to NEOLA and saying their sample policy crosses the line.
Regarding the No Trinket policy, they say any mention of those trinkets goes beyond what the law says, so districts are not allowed to restrict them, because that would invite “intrusion upon the First Amendment rights of students and their parents, as well as the organizations providing release time education.” (They really, really want children to convert their friends to Christianity by using candy and toys and mini-Bibles and whatever else they can find to get those kids to convince their parents to let them attend indoctrination class.)
First Liberty also says the policy about background checks—and how districts could refuse to release kids to groups that don’t complete those satisfactorily—is unfair because it makes those religious groups have to jump through too many hoops. They want very low standards, “reducing the amount of information that the organizations must provide, and the district will have to review.” Which is a batshit crazy thing to push for when it comes to the safety of children.
The group also says NEOLA is trying to “exploit a loophole” by saying all graded courses are “core” classes that cannot be skipped. First Liberty says that suggestion could “allow school districts to prevent release time programs altogether.” Once again, that’s not true. Students have at least some time set aside for lunch, which to the best of my knowledge, you can’t officially fail. But it’s not the district’s job to provide students with meaningless class periods they can skip. Religious indoctrination classes are, at best, optional for students who have the time to go. If they’re busy with their other more important classes, the district cannot be punished for that.
The bottom line is that the law was hastily written by Republicans, groups like NEOLA are now trying to create sample policies that conform to the law while making sure school districts can provide the best education for students, and agenda-driven politicians and legal groups are trying to scare school districts into watering down their academic offerings so that kids can attend church and then bribe their friends to join them.
“Neola’s proposed policy directly contradicts the explicit direction of the Ohio Legislature,” said Jeremy Dys, Senior Counsel at First Liberty Institute. “School districts must create policies consistent with the new law requiring release time education, not policies that chill core First Amendment activity. School districts should be warned that, if they adopt Neola’s current, proposed policy they are greatly increasing their liability and will almost certainly face a lawsuit.”
Jeremy Dys, senior legal counsel for the First Liberty Institute, told The Dispatch on Wednesday that the NEOLA policy was "so many layers of bureaucracy that it will discourage anybody from participation," in what he said was a violation of the First Amendment.
"It almost reads as if NEOLA is trying to work with others that don't want to see release time education occurring," Dys said. "So they're creating a lot of bureaucratic traps along the way that would make it really, really, really hard. 'Oh, sure, you can do release time education, but you've got to jump through 895 fiery hoops in order to do that.'"
If strong background checks for employees and a ban on bribes are too many hoops for a Christian ministry to jump through, they shouldn’t be wasting anyone’s time in the first place. The only thing the districts have to do is allow for “Released Time." They can set whatever boundaries they want in the implementation, especially when it comes to the safety and well-being of students.
Just because right-wing zealots don’t give a damn about secular education doesn’t mean school boards should follow suit.
If school districts were blocking students from skipping class to learn about Jesus, sure, they could be sued. But the sample guidance from NEOLA just makes sure students are going to a safe place, aren’t distracting their classmates when they return, and aren’t avoiding required classes in order to attend something they really should be doing on weekends.
Right-wing groups might sue anyway because they thrive on publicity. But they already got what they wanted. Republicans passed their law. They’re just mad that school districts, unlike them, have higher standards.
A senior advisor at NEOLA told the Columbus Dispatch that groups like LifeWise and their lawyers are taking a "really aggressive approach to a brand-new requirement that the 600-plus school districts in Ohio are trying to figure out."
For now, the strategic thing to do may be to play defense and make sure any policy avoids potential traps. But it’s not a trap to have high standards for background checks, and making clear which classes students can’t skip, and implementing a ban on trinkets. As I said before, if public schools are required to accommodate religious conservatives, the least they can do is make it harder for them to recruit fresh meat by using students as target practice.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
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Hmm. Whining about having to pass background checks and being prohibited from bribing children with candy and toys. It's as if they 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 that there are predators just waiting to take advantage of this, and they are willing to enable them.
And then they complain that the guidance tries to ensure that the children do not ever miss important instruction. Do you think the goal of the reich wingers is to replace actual education with their distortions?
This is why release time is a horrible idea all around.
Those released time woo programs should require all involved to be mandatory reporters as well.
Hmm. Whining about having to pass background checks and being prohibited from bribing children with candy and toys. It's as if they 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 that there are predators just waiting to take advantage of this, and they are willing to enable them.
And then they complain that the guidance tries to ensure that the children do not ever miss important instruction. Do you think the goal of the reich wingers is to replace actual education with their distortions?
This is why release time is a horrible idea all around.