{"id":8528,"date":"2026-01-21T19:59:41","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediumslateblue-snake-278037.hostingersite.com\/?p=8528"},"modified":"2026-01-21T19:59:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:59:43","slug":"school-kids-forced-to-hide-bibles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=8528","title":{"rendered":"School Kids Forced to Hide Bibles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Billy Hallowell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joel Penton, CEO of LifeWise Academy<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s a Released Time religious instruction program, made legal in 1952, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Zorach v. Clauson <\/em>case that public school students can be released during school hours to attend religious classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve 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,\u201d Penton said. \u201cWe had dozens of families engaged and some individuals went to the school board \u2026 one gentleman on the school board, in particular, was swayed by these things, and they put in some really discriminatory rules.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued, \u201cThey updated their policies and changed the rules on us so that, unlike other student groups \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penton said LifeWise has been \u201csingled out.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Normally, Penton said, this would be a one-time permission granted at the start of the school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have now changed the rules that children need to bring in a permission slip every single week,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd not only that, they\u2019ve said that the parents need to carry in the permission slip each and every week \u2026 it\u2019s clearly an obstacle they\u2019re putting up to try to push us out because that\u2019s unreasonable for parents to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third issue Penton mentioned \u2014 one he called \u201calmost comically discriminatory\u201d \u2014 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 \u201csealed envelope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat sounds like it can\u2019t even be real, but a sealed envelope as though the material is dangerous \u2014 that it will infect other children,\u201d Penton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He believes the school board changed its policies to \u201csingle \u2026 out\u201d LifeWise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seems to be a transparent attempt to get us to effectively shut down the program,\u201d Penton said. \u201cAnd so we really tried to handle this quietly. \u2026 We went to the school and tried to very quietly say, \u2018You know, this is discrimination; you can\u2019t do this. There\u2019s a constitution in this country.\u2019 And they were not receptive to that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penton went to First Liberty Institute, a conservative legal firm, to get assistance. A letter pushing back on the policies reportedly didn\u2019t yield the response First Liberty wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, LifeWise has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the district\u2019s policies. Penton said parents feel targeted by the district\u2019s actions, and he\u2019s working to ensure they are overturned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs you can imagine, parents are upset by this, and especially when \u2026 we\u2019ve been trying to do this in a way that isn\u2019t offensive,\u201d he said. \u201cKids whose parents opt them into the program want to quietly have a Bible study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Penton said LifeWise wants families to have full access to the program in a \u201cway that is not discriminatory toward them.\u201d He\u2019s hoping to see normal policies reinstated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not looking for fights,\u201d Penton said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking to teach the Bible to kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> that no additional comment could be given on the litigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Billy Hallowell 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[202,109,179],"coauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-faith","8":"tag-children","9":"tag-persecution","10":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8531,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8528\/revisions\/8531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8528"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=8528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}