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Happy Valentine's Day
Happy Valentine's Day
đź’Ś Happy Valentine's Day, Fellow Freethinker.
Did you exchange Cupid-adorned cards and choke on those chalky, candy conversation hearts in grade school like I did?Â
Fun fact: it turns out Valentine’s Day has its early origins as an ancient Roman agricultural and human fertility festival before it was Christianized. (What Is the Real Meaning of Valentine’s Day? (almanac.com)) And yet, not a single Valentine’s Day card given to me in those formative years ever mentioned agriculture or fertility. Go figure. 🤷
Cards and candy hearts aren’t the only things getting passed around in classrooms this Valentine’s Day. Christian Nationalism is spreading through our public schools like a measles outbreak, and LifeWise Academy is practically patient zero.
Take a look at this screenshot. This is from an interactive map created by the Secular Education Association. It tracks LifeWise's implementation process in school districts all across the country. See all that dark buckeye red?
In this newsletter, we’ll share some information about LifeWise Academy, what makes it dangerous, and where you can learn more about them. We’re also sharing a note from a research professor I met at the national Freedom From Religion Foundation conference in the fall.Â
Know someone who needs to read this newsletter? Forward it - maybe in the form of a special valentine from a secret admirer. 💋
Thanks for reading.
Your COFFRF Planning Committee
Matthew Dyer, Chair
David Jon Krohn, Treasurer
Bill Fullarton
Glenn Waring
Anita Bucknam
Les Kleen
P.S. Would you like to contribute an article to our monthly newsletter? Do you have an idea about something you’d like to see COFFRF do this year? Drop me a line: matthew@coffrf.org.
“There are 13,000 school districts nationwide, 90,000 public school buildings, 50 million public school students. We think it’s our responsibility to make Bible education available to all of them. That’s our objective.”
-Joel Penton, LifeWise Academy CEO and founder
LifeWise Academy Overview
LifeWise Academy Overview
By Matthew Dyer
Ohio is at the epicenter of a fast growing, dangerous Christian Nationalist indoctrination program that targets public school children. It’s called LifeWise Academy - and here in central Ohio you might’ve seen their big red busses around town.
Begun in 2018, they’re a program which provides “non-denominational” religious indoctrination instruction to public school children during the school day. Based in Hilliard and led by CEO, founder, and former OSU football player Joel Penton, LifeWise Academy is taking full advantage of an Ohio law that went into effect in April. That law, which also calls for educators to out LGBTQ+ kids to their parents, requires Ohio public school district boards to put into place policies that let students go to religious indoctrination instruction classes during the day.
LifeWise isn’t everywhere yet, but it’s getting there. As of last November (and in what must most assuredly be a holy-grail-half-full / holy-grail-half-empty situation for them) LifeWise had infiltrated successfully launched its program in 305 of 611 total Ohio public school districts (source: The Epoch Times, 1-Nov-2025 ) (note from MD: I don’t want to drive traffic to that website, so I am refusing to link to them). LifeWise Academy’s sights are set on expanding their reach, to say the least. That same Epoch Times article concludes by quoting Penton as saying, “There are 13,000 school districts nationwide, 90,000 public school buildings, 50 million public school students. We think it’s our responsibility to make Bible education available to all of them. That’s our objective.”
Yikes.
More About LifeWise Academy
More About LifeWise Academy
Respect Public Schools: LifeWise Academy. What "During School Hours" Looks Like (12-Feb-2026) (respectpublicshools.substack.com)
LifeWise’s big red bus is driving thorny questions about church and state (2-Dec-2025) (ohiocapitaljournal.com)
WOSU All Sides with Amy Juravich: Can Ohio public schools stop religious education during school hours? (13-Nov-2024) (wosu.org)
"This is a multifaceted attack on the public school day."
-Molly Gaines, Secular Education Association Co-Founder
The Secular Education Association
The Secular Education Association
by Matthew Dyer
Another group which also originated here in Ohio, the Secular Education Association (SEA), has seen LifeWise Academy in action and is clapping back. SEA is made up of parents, families, and community members who believe in the separation of church and state in public education. They’ve put together a great explainer video that shines a light on the differences in what LifeWise Academy espouses to do vs. what’s actually happening. It’s very much worth watching. LifeWise in 3 Minutes (youtube.com)
SEA describes themselves as “a national, parent-led, grassroots organization dedicated to protecting the integrity of public education by advocating for a secular, inclusive, and evidence-based learning environment for all students.” I had trouble finding their official website (seculareducationassociation.org) at first, but it makes sense when you find out they’re the first and only organization whose sole focus is dedicated to maintaining secularism in K-12 public schools.Â
Co-founders Molly Gaines and Zachary Parrish met with me this week to tell me more about the association and their mission.
They started SEA, which is working on obtaining its 501(c)(3) status, to fill a void. While organizations like Freedom From Religion Foundation and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State are advocating for everyone's First Amendment rights, there wasn't an organization specifically and solely dedicated to that advocacy in the K-12 environment when they needed one. Parrish's daughter, in second grade at the time, was in a study hall while other students were at LifeWise and he didn't like the pressure it placed on her to conform or be left behind from her classmates. So, Parents Against LifeWise (SEA's original name) was formed as a group on Facebook.
I had never heard the initialism “RTRI” before. It stands for “Release Time for Religious Instruction.” RTRI became a thing in 1905 and it allowed for religious teachings during school days (usually off-site). A Supreme Court case in 1948 and another in 1952 both address RTRI. Learn more about its history and modern implications on the SEA website (seculareducationassociation.org). The RTRI law in Ohio is found in Ohio Revised Code § 3313.6022 (codes.ohio.gov).
RTRI is what LifeWise is exploiting to spread their Evangelical Christian indoctrination beliefs throughout public schools, whether you like it or not.
"But it's not just LifeWise," Gaines said, "This is a multifaceted attack on the public school day." When you consider before school religious programming, after school religious programming, public school chaplains, legislation like the Charlie Kirk Act, legislation requiring the 10 Commandments in classrooms, "parental rights" bills, and voucher schemes - all of them relentlessly flooding the zone -Â Gaines's point is well taken.
More About the Secular Education Association
More About the Secular Education Association
Main website (SecularEducationAssociation.org)Â
Don't miss these sections:
SEA Resources - tools and templates, documented violations, news coverage, helpful links and more.
SEA Legislation Tracker - legislation tracking for state initiatives that could affect the secular school day.
SEA Interactive LifeWise Implementation Map - tracks all stages of LifeWise Academy implementation across the United States of America.
Opinion Pieces and Articles
Opinion Pieces and Articles
Comment: LifeWise misreads Constitution in suing Everett Schools by Molly Gaines (heraldnet.com) (7-Feb-2026)
LifeWise is disruptive, exploitative, and careless. Here's how I know | Opinion (dispatch.com) (12-Sep-2025)
Bible education program comes at a cost, group says (limaohio.com) (16-May-2025)
Research Participants Wanted
Research Participants Wanted
by Matthew Dyer
During a lunchtime meal at the FFRF 2025 National Convention, I sat next to someone particularly interested in LifeWise’s presence here in Ohio. She’s doing some research for a new book she’s writing and asked us to pass along this request:Â
Hello! My name is Orit Avishai, a professor of sociology at Fordham University in NYC. I am conducting research for a book on church/state separation. As part of my research, I would like to speak to grassroots activists working on church/state or adjacent issues in their local communities. Conversations are confidential; I do not share any information about study participants. For more information about myself and my research, or to schedule, please contact me at avishai at fordham dot edu. Thanks for considering.
You can check out some of Dr. Avishai’s work here:
Article: Religion Goes Back to School (Contexts, 2025)
Article: Spreading the Gospel During School Hours (The Revealer, 2025)
Book: Queer Judaism (NYU Press, 2023)
Please note: Any third party articles, opinions, or commentary shared in our newsletter are the author's and do not necessarily represent FFRF's or COFFRF's official positions.Editor's note: Candy hearts image generated using the prompt "An overflowing clear glass bowl of Valentine's Day candy hearts with secular, freethinker, atheist, agnostic, etc. words and phrases on them. Festive background full of themes of love, music, Cupid, and Valentine's Day," by ideogram.ai, 2026 (ideogram.ai). Proofreading, newsletter design and HTML created with assistance from Claude (Anthropic). No other AI assistance was used for this newsletter.
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