Jon Husted and the Ohio Government Promoting Lifewise Academy
Ohio elected officials have been promoting Lifewise for years. Lifewise is active in over 50% of Ohio school districts. The line between church and state in Ohio schools has been pushed to the limit.
Jon Husted has promoted Lifewise Academy in a series of events held around the state. These events have been reported on as being closed to the press. When asked about the events, proponents of Lifewise will say that Husted helped schools, churches, and communities understand released time and how it can be legally implemented. Husted’s official calendar says otherwise. There were 16 events labeled as “LifeWise” on Husted’s calendar. And one meeting “to call Joel directly.” Joel Penton is the CEO of Lifewise. During 2022 to 2023, Husted held 16 events for Lifewise Academy.
See the full calendar pages with Lifewise events.
At the end of 2023, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sent a letter to every school district stating that released time is legal and schools “need not worry” about working with programs like Lifewise Academy. He chooses to quote Zorach, “If a school simply allows students to leave, according to parents’ wishes and without public funds, the school is honoring religious liberty, not violating any rules against establishing a state religion.” He fails to mention Lifewise programs that have ignored the Supreme Court ruling, operated on school property, adjusted schedules to benefit released-time programs, allowed schools to rent buses to Lifewise, and adjusted student IEPs because of Lifewise. Lifewise is not a program where students are simply released to them. It is a tightly knit collaboration between a religious entity and the public schools.
The following year (2024), House Bill 445 was introduced by Representative Gary Click to change Ohio’s released time religious instruction (RTRI) law from “may” to “shall.” This bill would force school districts to collaborate with Lifewise Academy. This bill would eventually become a part of House Bill 8, the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” legislation, and was passed at the very end of 2024.
Ohio has been ground zero for Lifewise Academy and a case study for what happens when the government promotes a single religious entity. 60% of school districts in Ohio have or are in the process of having Lifewise operating in them.
The impact on the public schools isn’t even known. Countless hours of class are missed every week. The teachers who have been forced to modify their lesson plans and schedules for the ministry. The students who did not sign up but are now impacted by Lifewise.
school authorities are neutral in this regard, and do no more than release students whose parents so request.
Zorach vs Clauson (1952)
The current iteration of released time from Lifewise Academy is not in keeping with the original spirit of the law, and the Supreme Court could not have foreseen a multi-million-dollar organization using public schools as its marketing platform. We need to speak up and hold public officials accountable, and keep the public schools neutral.
Read more about Lifewise and view the Lifewise map at https://respectpublicschools.com/
Mike DeWine toured kind of trailing behind them too. Not as much, but I definitely know Salem, OH got their visit from Penton and Husted, and then shortly thereafter Mike DeWine. Then the Brightside project got a big influx of cash in state funding from DeWine and then in turn, the Brightside Project had helped to promote the Salem LIfEwiSe and gave funding to them, like it was an indirect way from DeWine to fund LifeWise. Not sure how many communities this series of events happened in, but might be worth looking into. 🤷♀️
I've been wondering if Bob McEwen was involved. I suspected he might be a missing link. He was executive director of the Council for National Policy (Reagan's religious right org, very powerful) for a long time.