School District Accused of Forcing Kids to Hide Bibles [Video]

Billy Hallowell : Jan 19, 2026
Faithwire

The third issue Penton mentioned—one he called "almost comically discriminatory"—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 "sealed envelope."

[Faithwire.com] 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. (Image: Unsplash-Ben White)

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 public schools during the day.

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's a Released Time religious instruction program, made legal in 1952, when the US Supreme Court ruled in the Zorach v. Clauson case that public school students can be released during school hours to attend religious classes.

"We've 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," Penton said. "We had dozens of families engaged and some individuals went to the school board ... one gentleman on the school board, in particular, was swayed by these things, and they put in some really discriminatory rules."

He continued, "They updated their policies and changed the rules on us so that, unlike other student groups ... 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."

Penton said LifeWise has been "singled out." 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.

Normally, Penton said, this would be a one-time permission granted at the start of the school year.

"They have now changed the rules that children need to bring in a permission slip every single week," he explained. "And not only that, they have said that the parents need to carry in the permission slip each and every week ... it's clearly an obstacle they're putting up to try to push us out because that's unreasonable for parents to do that."

Penton alleged no other clubs are being asked to do the same... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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