More than 150 people submitted opponent testimony against a bill that would require school districts to allow students to be released from school for religious instruction.

Opponents argued religious release time programs disrupt the school day, create a divide between students who participate and those that don’t, and interfere with religious freedom.

“My concern with religious release time programs during the school day is the rights of the children who do not participate in those programs,” said Rev. Vicki Zust, rector of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Upper Arlington.

Three opponents were able to give their testimony during last week’s Ohio House Primary and Secondary Education Committee meeting and committee chair Gayle Manning, R-North Ridgeville, had to remind those in attendance to be quiet during testimony.

“We are not applauding. … We remain silent,” Manning said.

The three opponents specifically spoke about experiences they have seen with , a Hilliard-based religious instruction program that enrolls . LifeWise, a non-denominational Christian program that teaches the Bible, is in .

“During proponent testimony in June, it became clear this bill is not about religious pluralism,” said Christina Collins, executive director of Honesty for Ohio Education. “It is about one, very well-funded program wanting to push its brand of Christian nationalist beliefs on a captive audience during the school day.”

Nearly 120 people submitted proponent testimony in June.

Ohio law currently permits school district boards of education to make a policy to let students go to a course in religious instruction, so these bills would strengthen the law by requiring a policy. A set of companion bills would require school districts to create a religious release time policy and change the wording of the existing law in the Ohio Revised Code from “may” to “shall.”

 was introduced earlier this year by state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, and Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, who is now a state senator. Sen. Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, introduced this summer.

“To be honest with you guys, I think this might be the easiest piece of legislation before you this General Assembly,” Cutrona said during a recent Senate Education Committee meeting. “Why? Because there’s only one word change in this bill, and so we’re just moving it from may to shall. … The intent of this bill is to leave the decision to participate in religious release time programs up to the parents, not the school boards.”

“Despite the fact that it’s only one word, it’s a huge word,” said State Sen. Catherine D. Ingram, D-Cincinnati.

The United States Supreme Court upheld released time laws during the 1952 case, which allowed a school district to have students leave school for part of the day to receive religious instruction.

“While LifeWise claims that the process of leaving and returning to school is smooth, anyone who has ever tried to organize first graders for a field trip knows it is far from seamless,” said Jaclyn Fraley, the mom of a first-grader in Westerville Schools.

Westerville City Schools Board of Education recently that allowed LifeWise Academy to take public school students off-campus for Bible classes during school hours.

“One parent in my group (Westerville Parents United) shared that her daughter was told in class that she and her mothers were “going to hell” because they belong to an LGBTQIA family,” Fraley said. “Another parent described how their child was told they didn’t ‘really believe in God’ because they are not Christian.”

Elementary school students who do not attend LifeWise in Defiance Schools in Northwest Ohio are sent to study hall and are called “LifeWise leftovers,” Fraley said.

Zust said parents in her congregation who choose not to allow their children to participate in the program are mocked and threatened.

“This creates a hostile environment for the children of my congregation as well as children of other denominations and faiths,” Zust said. “That is a violation of their First Amendment and educational rights.”

Opponents argued there are other ways students can learn about religion outside of school time.

“We didn’t have these programs,” Fraley said. “Our parents took us to church. Our parents took us to temple. Our parents took us to mosque. Our parents took us to the places where we went to learn those religious beliefs.”

State Rep. Jodi Whitted, D-Madeira, asked how these programs accommodate students with Individualized Education Programs, but Collins explained there can’t be an exchange of information with programs like LifeWise since IEPs remain within the district.

“We’re talking about students with special needs who are being sent off campus to people that are ill-equipped to work with them, with no built-in caveats for necessitating being able to meet those needs,” Collins said.

State Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio, D-Gahanna, asked how districts accommodate students with fixed prayer times.

“They simply leave, do their prayers and come back,” Collins said. “It’s not a leaving the campus, coming back with stickers and candy kind of event.”

State Rep. Joe Miller, D-Amherst, said his office has received nearly 200 emails against H.B. 445 and less than 20 in support of it.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

OKLAHOMA CITY — Legislation permitting chaplains to work in public schools reemerged and advanced in the Oklahoma Legislature this week.

Rep. Kevin West, R-Moore, deleted the original language of , a discarded bill from 2023 relating to the Open Records Act, and replaced it with a measure to allow religious chaplains to be hired or to volunteer in schools.

The House General Government Committee passed the new version of SB 36 on Tuesday in a party-line vote 6-2. Four other school chaplain bills failed earlier in the legislative session without receiving a committee hearing.

West said chaplains wouldn’t try to sway students toward a certain faith but could help with counseling, though his bill doesn’t specify required qualifications nor their role in a school.

It forbids chaplains who are registered sex offenders but doesn’t require them to complete a background check.

West said each local school board could decide whether to mandate a particular certification and vetting.

“We have chaplains from many, many different religious backgrounds,” he said before the committee vote. “This is not benefiting one specific religion over another. It is simply a tool that could be at the disposal of a school board to assist with counseling.”

The Oklahoma School Counselors Association encouraged Oklahomans to call on their local lawmakers to vote against SB 36.

“OSCA does not support this bill as we see the necessity of highly trained school counselors to be providing mental health and wellness, academic, and career support to Oklahoma students,” the organization posted in a social media message.

House Democrats have opposed the bill, citing constitutional concerns over hiring religious ministers with public tax dollars.

School counselors typically are required to hold a master’s degree and pass a certification test before being hired to counsel students.

SB 36 includes no language that ensures chaplains are qualified for counseling, and it doesn’t forbid them from preaching their faith, said Rev. Shannon Fleck, executive director of the Oklahoma Faith Network.

Some lawmakers, while supporting SB 36, referred to the military’s use of chaplains, but Fleck said the two are not comparable. Becoming a military chaplain comes with clear requirements, including obtaining a master’s level theology degree, an endorsement from a faith group and military training to work in a multi-faith setting.

“When you’re not putting parameters around something, it could go in a multitude of different directions,” Fleck said. “We really want to be clear about who we are letting into our public schools and who we are allowing access to our children.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

An Oklahoma state board voted Monday to approve a contract for the nation’s first Catholic charter school. The vote by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board moves the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School closer to opening in the fall of 2024. 

But a lawsuit over the legality of the school could thwart those plans. The board “is continuing on a misguided path to create the nation’s first religious public charter school in clear violation of Oklahoma law and the state’s promise of church-state separation and public schools that are open to all,” the advocacy groups suing over the application, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a joint statement. 

Defendants, including the virtual charter board, the Oklahoma State Department of Education and state Superintendent Ryan Walters, have filed a motion to dismiss the case. A hearing on those motions is scheduled for Dec. 21.

Oklahoma public school advocates filed Monday challenging the legality of the nation’s first explicitly religious charter school.

The petition, filed in Oklahoma state court, seeks to stop authorities from moving forward with opening a virtual Catholic charter school.

The , including the nonprofit Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee, parents and religious leaders, say St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would violate Oklahoma law and potentially discriminate against LGBTQ students and those with disabilities. 

“We’re witnessing a full-on assault on church-state separation and public education — and religious public charter schools are the next frontier,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is representing the plaintiffs along with the American Civil Liberties Union. 

The attempt to open a religious charter school, she added, is “one piece of a larger Christian nationalist agenda to infuse Christianity into public schools.” She cited  Texas’s decision to allow in public schools as another example.

Catholic church leaders in Oklahoma say they’re ready for what could be a long legal battle — one that was expected even before the state’s Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 in June to approve the application. 

“News of a suit … comes as no surprise since they have indicated early in this process their intentions to litigate,” said Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, a policy organization representing the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa. “We remain confident that the Oklahoma court will ultimately agree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in favor of religious liberty.”

The lawsuit, which names members of the Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board, state Superintendent Ryan Walters and the state education department, is the latest development in a national debate over whether charter schools can legally practice religion. 

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond advised the board that approving the application would violate the state’s ban on supporting religious schools with public funds. As a result, the board sought outside legal counsel and last month voted to hire Alliance Defending Freedom. The conservative law firm has participated in some of the more high-profile cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including the that rolled back abortion rights and , in which the court ruled that a Colorado graphic designer has the right to refuse to make a wedding website for a gay couple. 

Walters said in a statement that the lawsuit amounts to religious persecution.

“It is time to end atheism as the state-sponsored religion,” he said. “A warped perversion of history has created a modern day concept that all religious freedom is driven from the classrooms.”

But in a call with reporters, Rev. Lori Walke, senior minister of Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, said the Constitution protects those who don’t wish to practice religion.

“We have made a decision as a country to not coerce children into praying to a specific deity or in a specific tradition,” she said.

The Supreme Court last month declined to hear a North Carolina case that argued charters are private, a distinction that was expected to bolster the argument of those who say charters can be religious. 

The Oklahoma attorney general’s office challenged the validity of the charter vote after Brian Bobek, the member who tipped the outcome in favor of the Catholic church, was appointed just days before the meeting and opted not to recuse himself. According to Drummond, the law says Bobek’s appointment shouldn’t have taken effect until November.

Before the board approved the application, they asked the applicants to strengthen their proposal for serving students with disabilities. But the plaintiffs say the school hasn’t committed to serving students who may need in-person learning.

“I don’t want my tax dollars to fund a charter school that won’t commit to adequately accepting and educating all students,” Michele Medley, a mother of three, said in a statement. Two of her children are autistic and one identifies as LGBTQ.

The application states that the school plans to fully teach the Catholic faith, but Farley said claims that the school won’t serve students with disabilities are “unfounded.”

“The whole idea is that we want to take the education program that we’ve been running for a century and put it online,” he told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ before the board’s vote. “Partnering with the state makes that possible.”