An estimated 30 000 students from across the nation are picked up by what is known as” a big, red LifeWise bus” once a week for a Bible lesson at a neighborhood church or other religious institution.
It may surprise some, but it’s completely legitimate in the United States, says LifeWise Academy founder and CEO Joel Penton.
LifeWise was created in 2019, after Penton saw a local software like it in his town of Ayersville, Ohio. Students may shortly left their public school classrooms for Bible study at a nearby church or other spiritual institution before coming back to school to maintain their reading, writing, and math instruction.
Now, LifeWise Academy serves 323 institutions in 12 state, and about 30, 000 K- 12 students, Penton said in a new telephone interview.
The CEO of the nonprofit addressed a point where some parents are unsure when given the option to give their children midday Bible classes. Families frequently assume that the government is in complete power of their child’s academic performance.
” I know what people are feeling”, Penton said. ” They’re feeling that the school owns that time—the state owns the time of 8 a. m .]to] 3 p. m., or whatever the school day is, and that’s just not true”.
That knowledge of parents ‘ rights regarding their son’s school day was officially validated by the Supreme Court in a 1952 situation, Zorach v. Clauson, he said. The circumstance made it possible for students in New York City to engage in religious teaching.
Penton claims that the decision allows any family to permit their child to get Bible classes through his programme without violating the First Amendment’s prohibition against the establishment of religion.
A mistake of the separation of church and state is another problem Penton contends LifeWise critics lift. Although the detachment principle is not really contained in the Constitution, it is frequently used to refer to issues involving religion and public education.
Unfortunately, Penton insists that LifeWise is the embodiment of church and state isolation. ” Children are very virtually separated from the state school”, he explained.
Liberals are upset about the LifeWise founder’s system on the Bible. He claims that reviewers are “frequently in the making, but frequently loud”.
The organization often throws “ice cream or snacks parties” to motivate students to attend its lessons, according to an NBC News statement on Tuesday. That, NBC suggested, was a campaign to attract liberal learners who otherwise might not go. The religious organization was the subject of the second of three accounts that NBC covered.
MSNBC, a left-leaning sister network, reported on Wednesday that host Alex Wagner claimed LifeWise is” currently influencing the minds of public school students in progressive cities like Columbus] Ohio.”
That 10-minute segment, which included a replay of a portion of the past NBC report about LifeWise, suggested that teaching students about the Bible might have an impact on primaries in “blue area settlements” in red states.
In a video posted on X ( formerly Twitter ), Penton said that NBC “admitted that the program is very successful, that it’s growing rapidly”. He added that LifeWise is good for schools, also, noting that post- COVID- 19,” serious absenteeism” remained a major problem countrywide, but when LifeWise participates in the school day, absenteeism goes along.
According to Penton, an independent study conducted by Thomas P. Miller &, Associates Consulting in October found that LifeWise programs have a” statistically significant” increase in student attendance. According to reports, LifeWise programs even have a similar positive effect when it comes to disciplinary issues, which are resolved at participating schools.
Penton said LifeWise almost always has the ability to persuade schools to approve its program. ” Ninety- three percent of the time the school says,’ Yes, let’s do this.'”
According to the nonprofit’s founder, LifeWise offers classes in 12 different states, starting in kindergarten through 12th grade. Some 250 of the programs serve elementary schools, a majority of the total.
There’s no charge for participation in LifeWise, Penton said, for either school systems or the student participants.
” We want to make the Bible available to all of them ]students ]. And that’s what we’ve been trying to build, a plug- and- play program any community can implement”, Penton said. In a Los Angeles County school, there are also programs in California and Washington state.
He stated that by this fall, he hopes to have LifeWise operational in at least 20 states and 500 schools.
To start a LifeWise Academy program, would- be participants can go to LifeWise’s website and start an online petition. LifeWise will assist local community members in the process of scouting a location and obtaining permission from the local school board once there are more than 50 signatories from an area.
