An organization that provides Bible programming to public school children is suing a Washington state school district, alleging officials are improperly targeting its Christian program.
Joel Penton, CEO of LifeWise Academy, told CBN News his organization allows parents to opt-in for their kids to go off-site during lunch, recess, and other non-essential periods from public schools during the day.
Children are then given Bible lessons before returning to their respective schools. LifeWise, which launched in 2019, operates in hundreds of schools and is independently funded. It’s a Released Time religious instruction program, made legal in 1952, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Zorach v. Clauson case that public school students can be released during school hours to attend religious classes.
“We’ve been growing rapidly in the last few years, but we started up a program in Everett, Washington, and it was going so well last year,” Penton said. “We had dozens of families engaged and some individuals went to the school board … one gentleman on the school board, in particular, was swayed by these things, and they put in some really discriminatory rules.”
He continued, “They updated their policies and changed the rules on us so that, unlike other student groups … we cannot show up now at any of the school-related functions like the fair where kids sign up for programs like ours and learn about new things.”
Penton said LifeWise has been “singled out.” Beyond purportedly precluding the organization from participating in these official club events, he said LifeWise is now required to obtain weekly parental permission slips from families who wish to opt in.
Normally, Penton said, this would be a one-time permission granted at the start of the school year.
“They have now changed the rules that children need to bring in a permission slip every single week,” he explained. “And not only that, they’ve said that the parents need to carry in the permission slip each and every week … it’s clearly an obstacle they’re putting up to try to push us out because that’s unreasonable for parents to do that.”
Penton alleged no other clubs are being asked to do the same. This school year, he said, LifeWise will be in 1,000 schools and no other school across the U.S. requires such permission.
The third issue Penton mentioned — one he called “almost comically discriminatory” — is a policy reportedly requiring students who leave LifeWise during the day and come back to school to place any materials, including Bibles, in a “sealed envelope.”
“That sounds like it can’t even be real, but a sealed envelope as though the material is dangerous — that it will infect other children,” Penton said.
He believes the school board changed its policies to “single … out” LifeWise.
“It seems to be a transparent attempt to get us to effectively shut down the program,” Penton said. “And so we really tried to handle this quietly. … We went to the school and tried to very quietly say, ‘You know, this is discrimination; you can’t do this. There’s a constitution in this country.’ And they were not receptive to that.”
Penton went to First Liberty Institute, a conservative legal firm, to get assistance. A letter pushing back on the policies reportedly didn’t yield the response First Liberty wanted.
So, LifeWise has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the district’s policies. Penton said parents feel targeted by the district’s actions, and he’s working to ensure they are overturned.
“As you can imagine, parents are upset by this, and especially when … we’ve been trying to do this in a way that isn’t offensive,” he said. “Kids whose parents opt them into the program want to quietly have a Bible study.”
Ultimately, Penton said LifeWise wants families to have full access to the program in a “way that is not discriminatory toward them.” He’s hoping to see normal policies reinstated.
“We’re not looking for fights,” Penton said. “We’re looking to teach the Bible to kids.”
CBN News reached out to the Everett Public Schools board for comment, but, as of the time of publication, have not yet received a response. Everett Public Schools spokesperson Harmony Weinberg reportedly told the Herald that no additional comment could be given on the litigation.
