More than 100 Ohio school districts added LifeWise Academy this year

LifeWise Academy, a nonprofit offering weekly Bible lessons during school hours, expanded by serving more than 100 additional Ohio districts.

As of December, it has reached more than 260 of the state’s 607 districts by December and wants to be in 300 by the end of the year, according to the Ohio Capital Journal. In a statement to the publication, LifeWise Academy called it a victory for parental rights.

The news follows Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s signing of House Bill 8, also known as the Parents’ Bill of Rights, into law. Among its provisions, it requires school districts to create a mandatory religious instruction release time policy and requires educators to disclose a student’s sexuality to their parents.

“The new release time religious education law in Ohio clarifies the rights for schools and parents to offer release time programs like LifeWise, making the path to implementing these programs more straightforward for many districts,” the organization said.

However, some nonreligious parents, such as Zach Parrish, criticized the organization. According to Parrish, he felt compelled to pull his daughter out of Defiance City Schools after learning that school officials had allowed LifeWise Academy to teach children the Bible on school grounds.

“LifeWise makes it very clear in their own material that if the parents’ belief systems differ from LifeWise, the students are to assume that LifeWise is right and their parents, and anyone else, are wrong,” he alleged, adding that his daughter was bullied for not attending the academy’s classes.

Kitty Schwanitz of the Secular Education Association also argued that if a parent believes their children should be raised as Christians, they should bring them to church and Sunday school.

Ohio lawmakers previously passed Senate Bill 34, which would allow public schools to display four historical documents in grades 4-12 history classes. Among those documents are the Ten Commandments.

Sponsor Sen. Terry Johnson, R-McDermott, said that the bill “intends to reintroduce disciplined historic principles” and “expose our students to the documents which have, in America, served as the backbone of our legal and moral traditions.”

The measure advanced swiftly. Despite opposition from Democrats and state Sen. Nathan Manning, R-North Ridgeville, the Senate passed the bill on Dec. 5, sending it to the House for consideration in 2026.

In addition ot that, on Nov. 26, the House passed House Bill 486, called the Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act, honoring conservative activist and the founder of Turning Point USA, who was murdered on Sept. 10.

The bill, sponsored by state Reps. Gary Click, R-Vickery, and Mike Dovilla, R-Berea, would allow public school teachers to highlight religion’s – especially Christianity’s – positive role in U.S. history.