House Bill 445, a bill that forces public schools to have religious release time policies, was combined with House Bill 8 during Tuesday’s Senate Education Committee Meeting. House Bill 8 is Ohio’s equivalent to Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law.

As it stands now, public schools may choose to integrate religious release time policies. Policies like these allow students to leave campus during school hours for religious instruction and services, as long as there’s parental consent.

Solon Schools has this policy, said Superintendent Fred Bolden.

“We already have a policy in place for release time religious instruction,” Bolden said. “It’s just not allowed to impact core classes to go through it. We really haven’t had a lot of people take advantage of it.”

House Bill 445 would change the language in the already established law from “a school district…may adopt a policy that authorizes a student to be excused…[for] religious instruction” to “a school district…shall.” While such a small change may not seem to be impactful, its consequence and its merging with House Bill 8 may have a serious influence on all Ohio public schools.

House Bill 8, named the “Parents Bill of Rights,” mandates that schools notify parents about classroom content related to sexuality and allow them to take their children out of such lessons. It would additionally force school staff to automatically out students as LGBTQ+ to their parents.

In Florida, the “Don’t Say Gay” law prohibited instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. A lawsuit earlier this year changed the law, students and teachers can discuss sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms as long as it’s not part of classroom instruction.

Florida’s law laid the basis for similar laws in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina and more states.

Ohio’s version of this bill was passed by the House in June 2023, and it is a top priority for Republicans in the Senate.

The actual language of the bill states: “The policy shall require a school district to … notify a student’s parent of any change in the student’s services, including counseling services, or monitoring related to the student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being or the school’s ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for the student … including any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s biological sex.”

While proponents of this bill claim that it serves to inform parents of the welfare of their children and has no political agenda associated, critics worry it will only work to alienate students from seeking help.

At the heart of the discussion surrounding this bill is LifeWise, a Christian educational program that transports students during the school day to attend its programs religious instruction off campus. LifeWise, based in Hilliard, enrolls 50,000 students across 29 states, including about 160 Ohio school districts.

LifeWise Program Advocate Jennifer Jury said LifeWise was established as a plug and play model for communities if parents wanted Christian education for their students during school.

“LifeWise was born to create a plug in play model for communities,” Jury said. “So if a group of parents wants to start a program like LifeWise, they can kind of follow these ten steps.”

Jury said she believes these programs are beneficial to students of all ages.

“I think we’ve seen a lot of negative results over the last hundred years as a result of removing any type of religious exposure to students,” Jury said. “If we look at the world today in 2024, theres no question that there’s really high rates of things like anxiety, depression, mental illness and suicide among young people….Support systems can be most helpful in some of those situations, such as church attendance or reading the Bible, or having a community of faith….In the U.S. 90% of students dont go to church on Sunday, so we’ve just seen these reverse trends. I think it’s pretty clear to a lot of folks, and it’s not a surprise that there’s a correlation in those two things.”

According to Gallup, 20% of Americans attend church on a weekly basis. LifeWise says that their program has no political or social agenda.

“We do just teach what the Bible says, and we teach the gospel,” Jury said. “When I was the [LifeWise] director in Westerville, I was in classes every single week. I never heard political ideas being talked about.”

LifeWise’s classes are taught to elementary aged students. Many schools that offer LifeWise offer no other off-site classes for any other religion. While parents at any time may start another program, opponents say the equality of opportunity is not there.

There is not a large serious organized effort of a Jewish group, Muslim group, or any other faiths to establish off-site religious classes anywhere else in Ohio. One group called Parents Against LifeWise say that LifeWise is pushing beliefs such as supporting slavery, segregation, traditional gender roles, while forbidding interracial marriage, women pastors, and abortions.

LifeWise believes that legislation such as House Bill 445 would help clarify the meaning of separation of church and state.

“I think some people get confused and they think that the legislation is forcing schools to offer religious classes,” Jury said. “It’s just saying that the school district must excuse students who want to leave.”

Separation of church and state does not mean a total lack of all religion in schools. Many public schools have religious clubs, prayer rooms and students can openly share their personal beliefs.

Solon High School itself has many different outlets for students to share their faiths, said Solon Communications Director Tamara Strom.

“Our Solon Schools community is one of the most diverse communities in Ohio,” Strom said. “One of the ways we’re very diverse is in the religious background of our students. We have many cultural clubs that help students to be able to express that. In the spring, students do a wonderful job with the ethnic expo. Many of our clubs are able to share their cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds.”

The Senate will have its 7th committee meeting for this bill on Dec. 17. Before then, you can contact your senator and let them know what you think about this bill. Solon’s Senator for District 18 is Jerry C. Cirino.