Alliance Defending Freedom Rewrites Supreme Court Opinions
National released time programs help school districts violate state and federal laws by offering Bible classes in schools.
The released time religious instruction (RTRI) organization, School Ministries, has been using legal opinions from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) to convince public schools that allowing religious programs on school property during the school day is 100% legal.
A public records request to Mohawk Local Schools (Sycamore, OH) revealed that Wyandot Cares, a local RTRI program, and School Ministries, the national organization that assists Wyandot Cares, are distributing a paper from ADF in hopes of establishing Bible classes in the schools and/or using the school buses for transportation. The legal opinion aligns with the Equal Access Act rulings, which granted religious and non-religious student-led clubs equal access to secondary schools during non-instructional time.
The email from Wyandot Cares says Equal Access laws supersede released time laws. There is no mention of McCollum v. Board of Education (1948) or Zorach v. Clauson (1952), the two Supreme Court cases that specifically address released time programs. Zorach is quoted by every single released time program in the country. The goal of RTRI programs is to force public schools to offer Bible classes IN the schools.
In the public records, School Ministries identified two school districts that allowed a religious program to operate during the school day. Riverdale Local Schools and Conotton Valley Union Local Schools. Both districts allow a third-party organization to enter the school and teach Bible classes to students during the school day. The program is not student-led. This violates the Equal Access laws and also the school’s own policy for building access.
Legal Decisions
The ADF letter claims equal access laws allow released time during the school day. But the rulings they cite and the associated opinions all refer to after-school programs, not during the school day.
The following information is from LifeWise Exposed.
The Supreme Court rulings of Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches (1993) and Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001) both held that religious groups cannot be excluded from public school facilities when other community groups are allowed equal access. But those rulings share an important limitation — they explicitly apply to equal access to school facilities after school hours.
“The showing of this film series would not have been during school hours, would not have been sponsored by the school, and would have been open to the public, not just to church members. The District property had repeatedly been used by a wide variety of private organizations. Under these circumstances, as in Widmar, there would have been no realistic danger that the community would think that the District was endorsing religion or any particular creed, and any benefit to religion or to the Church would have been no more than incidental.”
Good News Club directly references Lamb’s Chapel in its majority opinion:
“As in Lamb’s Chapel, the Club’s meetings were to be held after school hours, not sponsored by the school, and open to any student who obtained parental consent, not just to Club members.”
Riverdale Local Schools
Riverdale Policy 5840 - Student Groups
“It is the policy of the Board of Education that student groups be recognized as authorized school organizations only if they are approved by the school administration, sponsored by school-approved personnel, composed of members of the current student body, hold the majority of their meetings at school, and have established aims which are educational in nature.”
Wyandot Cares is a registered non-profit that operates RTRI classes with the help of School Ministries. Wyandot Cares is not a student-led program. They hire teachers, volunteers, and other staff to support the organization. Students do not lead the classes or facilitate the program in any way. Wyndot Care’s website indicates they operate “off campus DURING the school day.” This is clearly for marketing purposes only and does not reflect the organization’s true intentions.
Riverdale Schools received $100 a year from Wyandot Cares to rent a room from the school. No contract was found by the school between 2021 and 2026. Only payments for the last three years could be located. School board policy requires that a schedule of fees be maintained by the superintendent, but none was provided. Board policy also states that use of the premises is allowed only outside regular school hours. It is not clear what the district charges other groups to rent space at the school, either during the school day or after hours.
Riverdale Policy 7510 - USE OF DISTRICT PREMISES
“For purposes of this policy, the terms “school premises” or “premises” refers to all indoor and outdoor structures, facilities, and land owned, rented, or leased by the Board. The term “non-school hours” refers to times prior to and after regular classroom instruction on a day that school is in session, and any day that school is not in session, including weekends, holidays, and vacation breaks.”
The district and Wyandot Cares both violated the law and school policy for years, creating a school-sponsored, taxpayer-funded religious program. Add to this that the district allowed staff and volunteers from the religious program onto school property during the school day, without conducting any background checks or vetting, or having any say in the hiring process. There was no contract with the outside organization, and the district’s insurance policy would not cover any liability. And the district did not validate the third-party organization’s insurance.
Conotton Valley Union Local Schools
The situation at Conotton Valley Union Local Schools was similar to that at Riverdale. Classes operated in the library during lunchtime. Students could attend the religious program run by a non-profit called Imagine School Ministries, which is also associated with the national School Ministries organization.
Administration confirmed that Conotton Valley does, in fact, allow the program to operate in the Library. The board of education approved rent of $50 each day the room is used. The school has staff who will monitor the class so they are aware of what is being taught. The school does not want it to be indoctrination, and they feel it’s not being done that way. The program was compared to Lifewise Academy, and it was made clear that it differs significantly from Lifewise because Imagine School Ministries does not indoctrinate students. This was part of the administration’s reasoning for allowing the program on school property. The school claimed to monitor the religious classes by having administrative staff sit in on them. This also suggests that the school administration sat in on Lifewise Academy classes and is now specifically choosing which religious programs are allowed in the school building based on the content of those classes.
The school district should never decide what a religious group can or cannot say to those gathered to worship. A government entity should not be checking into religious groups and deciding which ones can operate in the school. The administration allowed the school building to become a place where the school sponsored religion, and not an environment where religion is neutral. The school is placing a single religious viewpoint into the school.
School districts cannot allow an outside organization to rent a room and hold a religious class on the school property during school hours. School board policy for Conotton Valley states:
7510 - USE OF DISTRICT PREMISES
… H. Community organizations or groups of individuals primarily comprised of District residents/members of the community, including students (during non-school hours) and employees (when not working in the scope of their employment) formed or gathered for
1. charitable,
2. civic,
3. social,
4. religious, …
The phrase “during non-school hours” is the key to this policy and the religious classes. The school and the ministry are violating the policy by allowing a religious group to use the district premises during school hours.
It is clear that School Ministries has an agenda of reaching as many students as possible, even if it requires them to violate the law. School Ministries is not alone in this endeavor. Lifewise Academy also operates programs on school property and has used the same “Equal Access” laws as School Ministries. In emails between Lifewise CEO Joel Penton and his staff, he instructs them to work with School Ministries and another released time program, Bible2School.
Other School Districts
We have previously reported on Elmwood Local Schools and Newton Local Schools, which allowed Bible classes to be held on school district property. Other districts that also allow released time programs on the school property are Buckeye Valley Local School District (Delaware, OH), Benjamin Logan Local Schools (Bellefontaine, OH), Culver Community Schools Corporation (Culver, Indiana), Delphi Community Elementary School (Delphi, Indiana), and Waynedale Local School District (Apple Creek, Ohio).
The coordinated effort and similar legal opinions, when questioned about operating illegally on school property, show that these programs are not operating in a bubble. When Lifewise Academy began facing pushback from school districts and boards of education, it reached out to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who sent a letter to 600 school districts urging them to cooperate with released time programs. Dave Yost is stepping down from the Ohio AG position and will be working for Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization that has been assisting released time programs in breaking the law and operating on school grounds.
Ohio has been the epicenter for released time programs for fundamentalist Christian churches, and with the help of Dave Yost, it appears the situation for public schools will look even worse. Christian nationalism will be coming even faster IN a school near you.
With Conotton Valley having school personnel “sit in” on RTRI classes — it may be argued that it gives the impression to students that a “partnership” exists exists between the public school and the religious group (obviously a violation of Zorach).