Voters in Florida could have a chance to enshrine religious protections in schools in the Florida Constitution, the same protections already established in statute.

The measure, , pitched as establishing a constant constitutional law as opposed to more-often-altered statutory law, passed the House Education Administration Subcommittee Wednesday. It has another committee date before heading to the full House.

Bill sponsor Rep. Chase Tramont, a Republican from Port Orange, called it “a very common-sense resolution.”

“All of this is in state statute right now, so it is current law. My argument would be that protecting religious liberty and expression is arguably the most necessary thing to do. Laws are constantly being shifted, repealed, amended, and all sorts of things that happen,” Tramont said during the first committee stop Wednesday.

Lawmakers are proposing language for voters to approve that would prohibit school districts from discriminating against students, parents, and school employees based on religious viewpoint.

“A school district shall treat a student’s voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint on an otherwise permissible subject in the same manner that the school district treats a student’s voluntary expression of a secular viewpoint,” it states in part.

Schools must allow religious expression in coursework, artwork, clothing, and prayer, as already protected under the 2017 Student and School Personnel Religious Liberties Act.

Tramont pointed out that the resolution does not mention any one religion and does include all faiths.

“That’s part of free speech — part of freedom of expression is the ability to be acceptance of all faiths,” Tramont said.

The resolution passed with one vote in opposition, Democratic Rep. Angie Nixon, who voiced concerns about how it could alter curriculum. She indicated a willingness to support the measure on the floor.

Devon Graham from American Atheists said the resolution is not necessary.

“The sponsors and supporters will say that nowhere in this bill is any specific religion mentioned, but this will just boost religious protections. This is not our first rodeo. This is all double speak that we’ve heard before,” Graham said during public comment.

Graham pointed to the that provides moment of silences in public schools, pitched initially as being a chance for self reflection and later lauded by the governor as a religious freedom measure and signed by him at a synagogue.

“Without supporting or discouraging student prayer, each public school must require teachers in first-period classrooms in all grades to set aside at least one minute, but not more than two minutes, daily for a moment of silence, during which a student may not interfere with other students’ participation,” the proposed amendment reads.

Graham also referenced that Satanists would not be permitted to participate in the school chaplain program passed in 2024 as “cherry-picking” religions.

SJR 1104, identical, has two committees to pass, too. It is sponsored by Sen. Ralph Massullo, a Republican from Lecanto.

For the joint resolution to be placed on the ballot, each chamber must approve it by a three-fifths vote.

The resolution, if passed, would be put on the ballot for the Nov. 3, 2026 election. It would require approval by at least 60% of voters to pass.

Of course, the U.S. Constitution provides religious protection, too. It requires teachers to remain neutral in treating religious matters in school.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

Two months after the U.S. Supreme Court granted public school parents the right to withdraw their children from materials and discussions on LGBTQ+ issues and other subjects that conflict with their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” conservative leaders in California are predicting schools will be swamped with opt-out demands. 

That hasn’t happened yet, but attorneys agree that this latest escalation of the culture wars will likely cause turmoil, confusion, and years of litigation, largely because the court offered no guidance on how opt-out requests should be handled, how religious belief claims can or should be verified, and how schools should handle potential logistical issues.

“There is a lot of trepidation about how to handle this issue in a way that is legally compliant and doesn’t trigger a backlash from one side of the issue or the other,” Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, told EdSource via email Saturday night.

“Superintendents have concerns about how to make a fact-specific determination regarding parent requests, and we have heard of districts getting threats of litigation from both sides,” he said.

LGBTQ+ advocates and defenders of the state’s progressive school standards are threatening discrimination lawsuits if opt-outs are granted, Flint said. Parents are threatening to sue if they aren’t granted immediately.

In most districts, he added, leaders “are hesitant to address this publicly for fear of attracting more scrutiny and making the issue even more difficult to manage.”

A leading academic on education law said that while the Supreme Court decision was based on parental objections to LGBTQ+ books and lessons, the religious opt-outs are likely to have a broader reach.

“It is deeply misguided for people to believe that this case is only about LGBTQ+ and equality,” Yale Law School professor Justin Driver told EdSource. The decision “sweeps, given the prevalence of deeply felt religious objections, to lots of material,” he said.

It could “affect everything from reading to science, to literature to history. It’s difficult to overstate the significance of the decision,” Driver said. “Some people think Bert and Ernie are gay. Is ‘Sesame Street’ now suspect?”

California, for instance, requires students to learn the history of gay people fighting for civil rights and the story of the country’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. The San Francisco supervisor was assassinated in 1978 and posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.

Flint said that parents “in at least one district have hinted at trying to expand the opt-out requests to other types of instructional materials.” He did not identify those materials.

Meanwhile, as school administrators ponder their next steps, firebrand social conservatives are seizing the moment that the nation’s highest court created.

“There should be opt-outs. There are things that go against what God laid down,” pastor Angelo Frazier, of Bakersfield’s RiverLakes Community Church, said of what’s taught in California schools. 

“It’s not education. It’s ‘You can touch me here.’ It’s very suggestive and inappropriate.” He said the ruling was a relief to frustrated parents in his congregation. “It gives them breathing room.”

The leader of a Fresno-based Christian group, long involved in parental rights advocacy, said the state is no longer in charge of what children learn in school.

The ruling shows that “parents are the ultimate determination of whose values get taught to the child,” said Greg Burt of the California Family Council. “We’re now in charge of deciding what we think is good and what we think is not good.”

But as opt-outs begin to play out across California’s more than 10,000 public schools as the 2025-26 academic year opens, the only certainty from the case,  is that uncertainties abound — and may for years.

They include:

• Can or should parents file blanket opt-out requests stating they want their child removed from any and all instruction about LGBTQ+ topics, and leave school personnel to sort it out? Or should schools ask parents to review reading lists — often available online — and let parents flag those items to which they object? 
• What do school leaders do with students whose parents opt them out of a class? Their class time still needs to be used for instruction. Where do they go?
• Who watches or instructs the youngest of removed students, who can’t be left unsupervised? Some of the books cited in the Supreme Court case, including ones about a child’s favorite uncle marrying a man and a puppy getting lost at a Pride parade, are used in kindergarten and even transitional kindergarten classes.
• Will school districts need to budget money to defend lawsuits from parents whose opt-out requests may be denied? 
• Can parents even attempt to opt out their child from exposure to an LGBTQ+ teacher, or a teacher who displays a Pride flag in a classroom?

Lawyers and academics interviewed for this story said that Justice Samuel Alito’s decision, joined by the court’s five other conservatives, offered little guidance on how opt-outs should work.  

Mahmoud v. Taylor happened because the Montgomery County schools in suburban Maryland created an opt-out program to appease parents who objected to the teaching of LGBTQ+ materials on religious grounds. But the program ended in less than a year. Alito noted in his decision that school officials found that “individual principals and teachers could not accommodate the growing number of opt-out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.” Parents then sued.

Focusing largely on principles of religious freedom, Alito’s decision doesn’t specifically address how opt-outs might work given the Maryland situation, or how claims of a sincerely held religious belief might be evaluated. 

The high court has long recognized the rights of parents to “direct the religious upbringing of their children,” he wrote, a principle at the case’s core.

But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonja Sotomayor predicted opt-outs would cause “chaos for this nation’s public schools.”

Giving parents the chance to opt out of all lessons and story times that conflict with their beliefs “will impose impossible administrative burdens,” Sotomayor wrote. It threatens the very essence of public education.

&�Բ�����;“The reverberations of the court’s error will be felt, I fear, for generations.”

Opting out in California

Conservative groups in California opposed to LGBTQ+ themed teaching materials are generating letters and emails to school districts for parents to use to demand that school leaders proactively remove children from classes where there might be any mention of gay or transgender people, same-sex marriage and other related topics.

A nonprofit Riverside County law firm, Advocates for Faith & Freedom, created calling for children to be removed from any teaching involving “gender identity, the use of pronouns inconsistent with biological sex, sexual activity or intercourse of any kind, sexual orientation, or any LGBTQ+ topics” so parents can raise children “in the fear and knowledge of the Lord.”

The letter gives principals 10 calendar days to respond in writing. Lack of a response “will be considered a denial” that will cause parents to “proceed accordingly.”  

Erin Mersino, an attorney at the firm, said via email, “responses were just starting to come in,” and that it was too soon to discuss the letter’s effectiveness. Other groups are circulating at least four similar opt-out templates or email forms.  

The 10-day response demand in the nonprofit’s letter “is insufficient in my opinion,” said Mark Bresee, a La Jolla attorney specializing in education law.

Bresee also questioned if “a blanket, year-long ‘opt-out’ demand” is consistent with Alito’s decision, noting that the justice wrote that the “religious development of a child will always be fact-intensive. It will depend on the specific religious beliefs and practices asserted, as well as the specific nature of the educational requirement or curricular feature at issue.”

It’s unclear how far and fast those letters are circulating. Some school officials said they have received a few opt-out notices.

Conservative activist Brenda Lebsack, a Santa Ana Unified School District board member, said mass opt-out requests are unlikely to come until school districts themselves notify parents of the new right the court granted. “Opt-out forms should really be coming from the schools because if you’re getting opt-out forms from all these different law firms, and they’re all different, that could get really confusing,” she said. 

At the Manteca Unified School District in San Joaquin County, Assistant Superintendent Victoria Brunn said late last week that only one “opt-out request has been received so far. She said the parents who made it were told it would be granted. 

A spokesperson for the Turlock Unified School District in Stanislaus County said it had received a single inquiry about the opt-out process and created a standard form for requests, but that no requests had been received. Parents can either use the form or email a teacher, citing&�Բ�����;“specific instructional content” a student should not receive, according to a copy provided to EdSource.

“Teachers can also provide notice of upcoming curriculum,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

At the Hope Elementary School District in Santa Barbara County, Superintendent Anne Hubbard created an opt-out form. As of Friday, it had been used once to opt out two children in the same family, she said. 

Last week, the board of the 85-student Howell Mountain Elementary School District in Napa County canceled plans to create an opt-out form after community objections.

“Howell Mountain Elementary respects and values the LGBTQ+ community. We will not be adopting any type of opt-out form that specifically targets LGBTQ+ curriculum,” Superintendent Joshua Munoz said in a statement. Instead, the district will remind parents annually that the right to opt out exists, but will not cite any specific curriculum.

 that among those who spoke to the board was a St. Helena High School junior who’d attended Howell Mountain.

“When I was in seventh grade, I realized that I liked girls,” she said. “In school, the times that we were taught about LGBTQ+ people would remind me that I was not alone. I was not a freak or an alien. I was just me. And I could still do anything I wanted in my life.”

In San Francisco, Mawan Omar, the parent of a sixth grader, told EdSource he intends to opt his son out of LGBTQ+ materials because the teaching contradicts his family’s Muslim faith.  

Omar said his son, Hezma, objected on his own to an LGBTQ+ lesson in elementary school because it was contrary to what he had learned from the Holy Quran. “He just didn’t want to be around it because he knows our religion,” Omar said. After what he described as a dispute with the school’s principal, it was agreed informally that Hezma would be allowed to leave any classes involving similar materials.  

Now, Alito’s decision, Omar said, is gratifying. “We knew all along we were right.”

But Lebsack, who focuses on transgender issues and has formed an interfaith coalition primarily around them, said Alito’s decision isn’t enough.

“I think Mahmoud versus Taylor is throwing us crumbs,” she said in an interview. “I mean, I’m grateful for it, but it needs to go much further than that.”

Lebsack, a special education teacher and former Orange County probation officer, claimed the California Department of Education is ripe to be sued under the First and 14th amendments for “compelling public school students to accept and affirm extremist ideologies of unlimited gender identities” and for “bringing extremist forced teachings into K-12 public education.”

Asked to respond to Lebsack’s assertion, a spokesperson for the state Education Department directed a reporter to guidance posted online about Alito’s decision. It states, in part, “The California Department of Education and California law continue to promote a safe, fair, and welcoming learning environment in all schools. It is important to note that Mahmoud does not invalidate or preempt California’s strong protections for LGBTQ+ youth from discrimination, harassment, and bullying.” 

The goal: Banning books?

Other conservatives said they see a path where Alito’s decision could lead to the removal of books and teaching they oppose by overwhelming schools with opt-outs to the point where the best option is to remove the materials.

“If there are so many people who want to opt out of this curriculum, maybe we should stop teaching it,” said Julie Hamill, an attorney and president of the California Justice Center. School leaders, she said, should be reflecting on whether they are “doing something wrong as a district and educational entity. Those are questions that are not being asked right now. It’s very obvious that’s what needs to happen.”

Sonja Shaw, a Chino Valley Unified School District board member running for state superintendent of public instruction in next year’s election, said she wants opt-outs to “overtax the system to where they just give up, and they stop teaching this stuff.”

If so many opt-outs were filed that books are removed from curricula, that would help, said Burt of the California Family Council, which has urged parents to flood districts with opt-outs. “We’re advocating for good books in school, and we think these are bad books, so we’re not going to be sad if we see them go.”

But an anti-censorship advocate said that would amount to book banning by a different name. 

“I’m not at all surprised that this is their plan of attack,” Tasslyn Magnusson, senior adviser to the Freedom to Read team at PEN America, an anti-censorship group, said of conservative activists. “These are books about families. These are books about how we experience the world, and they’re beautiful and well written,” she said. “Remember that it’s important for kids to have a variety of materials in front of them that resonate with their lives and their experiences.”

Another impact of the opt-outs will be how LGBTQ+ students and students from families with LGBTQ+ members will react when classmates leave and when teaching materials reflecting their lives are presented.

That could make “a child feel they’re not only different, but that they’re not accepted or that they should be ashamed of the family that they have,” said Jorge Reyes Salinas,  a spokesperson for Equality California, a civil rights group. Although the opt-outs promise to be disruptive, he said, they won’t end the state’s use of an inclusive curriculum. “We’re talking about a very small population of parents that are ignorant and full of hate.”

The presidents of California’s two largest teachers unions both said educators are not going to fold under pressure created by the high court’s decision.

“The role of the public school is to help students develop the critical thinking skills and knowledge necessary to engage in a pluralistic democracy,” said Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “We cannot have individuals dictating what is the good of the public. It’s also important that our public schools avoid over-compliance and refuse to capitulate to the weaponization of this decision.”

David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, said that teachers “will obviously follow the law, but we want to make it clear to our members that there are other laws in California around kids’ ability to learn about their own identity, cultures, or all kinds of identities. We’re going to still honor kids’ ability to learn about their own identity and all kinds of identities.”

Goldberg also said it would be a mistake for school administrators to place the burden of opt-outs on teachers. “Teachers are overwhelmed already, just getting through the curriculum,” he said. Opt-outs are “a compliance thing that districts are going to need to figure out.”

The Scopes Monkey Trial

The country has a long history of science clashing with religion.

Driver, the Yale law professor, noted that in a 1987 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned a lower court that ruled fundamentalist Christians could remove their children from public school lessons that depicted women working outside the home, which they argued conflicted with their religious beliefs. 

Now, following Alito’s decision in the Maryland case, the losing argument in that case could be successful, Driver said. “It seems to me the Mahmoud versus Taylor decision empowered these sorts of objections to potentially carry the day.”

Alito’s decision also came 100 years after the landmark court case on the teaching of evolution in public schools — the epic clash of science versus religion known as the Scopes Monkey Trial that pitted legendary lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan against each other. 

Jennings, hired to prosecute a high school biology teacher, John Scopes, for teaching evolution against state law, won. But Tennessee’s Supreme Court later overturned Scopes’ conviction, ruling that a state law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools was unconstitutional.

But it didn’t end the debate over teaching science in the face of religious beliefs, said Pepperdine University law and history professor Edward Larson, author of . When it ended, “school districts all over the country and some states banned the teaching of the theory of human evolution,” he said.

Even when religious objections were later banned, “a series of state laws and local actions calling for balanced treatment of either teaching creation science, along with evolution, or later intelligent design” followed, Larson said. Several states, including Alabama, require disclaimers in biology books stating evolution “is just a theory,” he said.

“The issue of evolution in public schools remains a flash point,” Larson said.&�Բ�����;“It has been for a hundred years, it still is today.”

As the Alito decision plays out in the coming years, Larson said, “Schools may want to force people to provide all sorts of evidence” to prove their sincerely held religious beliefs.&�Բ�����;“But I’m thinking that most won’t feel it’s worth their time to get too engaged,” he added. 

“That’s just inviting trouble.” 

In the last 18 years, Wilkes County has lost 56 child care programs, 67% of its child care capacity. This year, thanks to a scrappy community effort, local leaders saved the county from losing another.

Sharon Phillips and her daughter Katy Hinson, owners of PlayWorks Early Care and Learning Center, cut the ribbon on their new location inside Wilkesboro United Methodist Church in April, expanding their business after months of wondering whether they’d survive at all.

“I consider what happened there a miracle,” said Todd Maberry, former managing director of the , a project at Duke Divinity School focused on helping churches assess their communities’ needs and find new ways to meet them. The center, which is closing this summer, helped the Wilkesboro church decide how to use an empty wing to help address a local lack of child care and bring in new revenue.

The specifics of the initiative, called “Big Building, Little Feet” — both the people behind it and the speed at which they raised more than $600,000 as the five-star program faced eviction — are specific to this community. But the model itself, Maberry said, has lessons for the entire state.

“There’s not one of the 100 counties that doesn’t have a church that has an empty educational wing sitting there,” Maberry said. “This can be a blueprint.”

With  and bipartisan state leaders , local leaders like those in Wilkes County are convening, collaborating, and raising money to make things work for their neighbors in the meantime.

“Communities need to think outside the box,” said Michelle Shepherd, executive director of , the local  partnership. “I think that’s the biggest takeaway. These children deserve quality child care, and what does that look like, and what do communities have to offer?”

A child care need, a church need

In 2023, Phillips and Hinson were touring every vacant building in town.

They were looking for a larger space to expand their 10-year-old business and help fill child care gaps. That year,  funded by the Leonard G Herring Family Foundation found that the county needed 836 additional child care slots, almost double the capacity it had. The report’s findings, released by the Wilkes Economic Development Corporation (EDC),  in the business community.

“The child care study revealed what a crisis we were in,” Hinson said.

Hinson and her mother were already struggling with a balance familiar to child care owners. They did not have enough revenue to pay teachers much more than minimum wage, couldn’t raise tuition without pricing out families, and were unwilling to cut costs by lowering quality. Stabilization grants funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act were expected to dry up, leaving a large gap in the budgets of .

“We just kind of felt like we had done all we could on our own two feet,” Phillips said.

Phillips and Hinson were coming up short in their search. 

“We had knocked on doors, we had toured all the vacant buildings, we had been to town officials,” Phillips said.

Then they started conversations with a local entity with its own financial struggles: Wilkesboro United Methodist Church. 

“Our church has dramatically shrunk … especially post-COVID,” said Gilbert Cox, who has attended the church since 2008 and was the chair of its finance committee at the time. 

Cox recalled holidays when he first joined with people overflowing into the aisles and Sundays with regularly full pews. A couple of years after the pandemic, the church was lucky to have 50 members attending services.

“This is a very common story for a lot of congregations in the country, particularly in North Carolina, particularly in rural places, where mainline churches have just been decimated by a pandemic, by disagreements,” Maberry said. “And Wilkesboro is not immune to that.”

Plus, more than 90% of the church’s space was sitting unused more than 90% of the time, Cox said.

“Eventually, what was an asset was going to turn into a liability,” he said. “The maintenance of it, and it stored more and more. I think we found five pianos. There were two in a closet we didn’t even know about.”

The church entered a six-week “design sprint” with the Ormond Center called the Community Craft Collaborative to figure out a different path forward. The process aims to helps churches better understand their community through data and interviews, and then encourages them to come up with an idea to experiment with.

Through a conversation with the EDC, Cox learned about the child care study’s findings. The organization connected him to Phillips and Hinson, who had recently reached out in their search for a new home.

By the end of the sprint, the church presented its idea: house and expand PlayWorks. Phillips and Hinson toured the church’s facilities and heard from the church’s leadership that they were on board.

“How could we take what is becoming a liability, and better connect to the community?” Cox said.

‘A gut punch’

In April 2024, a contractor gave an estimate on the building renovations necessary to meet regulatory standards. It would cost about $1.6 million. Everyone involved agreed: “It was insurmountable,” Cox said.

The potential collaboration felt like it had died, and Phillips and Hinson were back to square one.

“Everybody ghosted,” Phillips said.

While they were already down, they were hit with what Phillips described as “a gut punch.” In June 2024, the program received an eviction notice from its landlord, a local theater company that wanted to repurpose the space. PlayWorks had to be out by September. Their hunt for a new building became a make-or-break endeavor.

“I can just remember thinking, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? We don’t have any choices,” Phillips said. “I immediately called Michelle at the partnership.”

Shepherd, who had been the executive director of Wilkes Community Partnership for Children for about a year, said she immediately understood the urgency. With a background in K-12 education, Shepherd had spent her time at the partnership learning about just how dire her county’s child care needs were and developing relationships with a whole new sector of educators.

“We just couldn’t let them fold,” she said.

Shepherd’s leadership was a game-changer.

“When she wouldn’t give up, I wouldn’t give up,” Phillips said.

Through a $15,000 grant from the Ormond Center, the church paid an architect for renderings, moving forward without knowing whether things would work. Through a stroke of luck, a local contractor was called in to do the building’s measurements who was interested in bidding on the project. This time, the estimate came in at about $600,000.

“Michelle says, ‘Don’t give up,’ so it breathed new life into the possibility,” Cox said. “Even though the church didn’t have $590,000, Michelle — she deserves all the credit — she said, ‘Let me see what I can do.’”

Time crunch

Everyone got busy. Hinson and Phillips asked their landlord for an extension on the move-out date. The church began a deeper process with the Ormond Center to map out the details of the project. Shepherd, with no fundraising experience, started making calls.

“We all stepped out in faith that it would happen,” Hinson said.

The child care study helped Shepherd tell potential donors the story of the community’s need, she said, and explain the importance of child care for workforce participation.

“This was not some ‘Betty Froo Froo’ project; this was a necessity for our community,” she said. “That really played on the heart of business people in the community.”

Hinson and Phillips got an extension from their landlord for their move-out date to November, and then to April 2025.

Once Shepherd received the first big ‘yes’ — a $250,000 donation from an anonymous community member — others started following. 

“That was my big driver, that we can’t tell these kids, ‘You’ve got to go home,’ and parents that they can’t work that really want to work,” she said.

She reached out to people with a connection to PlayWorks, who understood the importance of the high-quality care and education it provided for children and families. She received donations from dozens of individuals, including a large contribution from private donor Janice Story and funds from church members and partnership employees.

She also reached out to foundations and community groups, securing grants from the Carson Foundation, the Leonard G Herring Family Foundation, the Cannon Foundation, the North Carolina Community Foundation, and United Way of North Carolina.

The effort did not receive any local or state public funding.

“All of a sudden, Michelle had almost a half a million dollars in a matter of almost weeks,” Cox said.

The Ormond process provided real estate and zoning expertise, as well as  to help the community tell its story. It was rooted in “asset mapping,” Maberry said.

“We’ve got a church with empty space, we’ve got an incredible child care center that is flexible and can move, and we’ve got a local nonprofit that’s committed to the well-being of children in the county,” he said. “Those are great assets. They can begin to look at, ‘OK, well, there’s a child care crisis, and one of the better ones is about to go away. How do we solve that?”

Shepherd said her mother was a salesperson, and always told her that salesmanship requires a good product and a powerful “why.” She had both.

“We had people that gave $50 up to $250,000,” she said. “It truly was a community, dollar-by-dollar fundraiser.”

Making it to opening day

From November 2024 to March 2025, the team reached their goal. The local contractor agreed to start construction before all the funding was secured to help Phillips and Hinson reach their move-out deadline.

There were many obstacles. The team almost had to call off the project once again when they realized the extent of the plumbing needs to have appropriate sinks in each room. They coordinated between sanitation, the county inspector, fire safety, and the state child care licensing under the Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE).

“There was not a single source that you could go to who could give you all the answers,” Cox said.

PlayWorks closed on March 20 and 21, a Thursday and Friday, plus the following Monday. In that long weekend, they moved with the help of family and friends and set up every classroom. On Monday, the center had its final sanitation inspection and a visit from DCDEE. They opened their doors to children on Tuesday.

The execution of the move, Phillips said, was a miracle in itself. Through the months of ups and downs, she kept thinking of the families she serves and the educators she employs.

“I kept going back to, how do we tell our staff? How do we tell our families? We are in such a child care crisis, there aren’t spots available in many places in the other child cares. How can we disperse 60 children in this county? You know, where are they going to go?”

On the day EdNC visited PlayWorks, Hinson and Phillips were moving in sync. Hinson went between classrooms, providing extra hands for fussy infants. Phillips met with licensing officials in the office during their second DCDEE check-in, which required a fire drill.

“We never really dreamed that something like this would happen,” Phillips said. “We’re just the proud recipients.”

The day before, they had celebrated the team’s accomplishments with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, during which church leaders called the moment “a revival.” But the next day, it was back to the work they both love and are challenged by.

The new space will allow PlayWorks to expand from serving 55 to 88 children as they add three new classrooms (for infants, toddlers, and 4-year-olds) in the coming months. 

The church is providing the space at less than $6 per square foot, Cox said, compared with the area’s average commercial lease of $28 per square foot. It is also covering utility costs.

Phillips said they do not expect any problem filling the new seats. They will first check with families on their waiting list. An interested family was visiting the program during the fire drill, during which all children were walked or rolled to a gazebo in the parking lot.

“Word of mouth is just really getting around,” she said.

Valuing educators

Phillips and Hinson are still hiring and rearranging teachers to staff the new classrooms. Each room has three teachers for now, for “an extra layer of quality.”

They start teachers, depending on education level and experience, at anywhere from $10 to $15 per hour. The median wage for the state’s child care teachers was $12.31 . Though PlayWorks is not immune to  experienced by the field, multiple teachers have stayed for several years.

Teacher Rachel Brionez has worked at PlayWorks since it opened because of “the environment that Sharon and Katie have created” among the staff, the families, and the children. Educators refer to Phillips and Hinson as “the dynamic duo.”

“They value us, and that makes coming to work so much better,” Brionez said. “You don’t dread the alarm clock going off.”

Brionez said her experiences in child care have not always been positive. Phillips said the same about her early career experiences.

Because of the low pay, high stress, and instability, Phillips had discouraged Hinson from going into the field. She pushed her to be a nurse instead. That all changed after one conversation, while Hinson, a high schooler at the time, was helping her mother with her pre-K class.

“She just broke down in tears, and she says, ‘I’m not going to be a nurse,’” Phillips said. “We both cried. And she said, ‘This is all I know through you.’ … I told her, ‘We will do something for your career.’ And that’s why we’re here.”

‘A slim margin’

Because of temporary state funding, the funding cliff that worried providers like Phillips and Hinson in 2023 was pushed back. In March 2025, programs received their final installment of the compensation grant, which has helped them raise teacher pay and plug the gap between what families can afford and what it costs to provide high-quality care.

“With the stabilization grant money from the state, we were able to give teachers those raises and bonuses, and we’re going to do all we can for that to continue,” Hinson said.

Advocates and DCDEE are asking the state legislature this session for child care investments to support the state’s child care subsidy program, which helps working low-income families afford care, and the early childhood workforce. None of the current proposals would provide the level of funding providers were receiving from stabilization grants.

“It’s worrisome,” Phillips said. “I really put it on the back burner, just knowing that, with the move and everything, we’ve got to move forward.”

As Phillips and Hinson both breathe a sigh of relief, they know their future remains unclear.

“We’ll make it on a slim margin — or I hope we will,” Phillips said. “I’m just thinking very optimistically that we’ll make it work, but it’s going to be very hard.”

A win-win model

Shepherd said the mutually beneficial partnership required resources that not every community has. She sees the state playing an important role in providing grant money to repurpose space — similar to the .

“I just think this is a great model for a lot of places to look at underutilized space and how to bring in some revenue for both,” she said.

Maberry is hoping to find a new way to continue the work of the Ormond Center, which had 55 relationships with churches. Some were working on child care projects, he said. Others were opening mental health services and helping their communities with affordable housing.

“Churches are at their best when they are meaningfully integrated into their community and are making their communities better places to be and to live,” he said.

The Wilkesboro project is an example of the power of dynamic partnerships and possibility in a time of disruption.

“For the church, it’s energized them,” he said. “Like they’ve got kids in their building now, all day, every day, and they’re starting to think, like, OK, well, if we can do this, what else can we do? Imagination can be contagious.”

The children, staff, and administrators at PlayWorks are settling in. Across the street is an assisted living center whose residents can now see playing children on their walks.

Phillips said she does not know whether Hinson will ever let her retire. They both said the new space feels like home.

“With some hard work and perseverance, we’ve made it,” Phillips said.

This was originally published on .

Come September, every public school classroom in Texas could be required to display the Ten Commandments under a requirement that passed the Texas legislature Wednesday — part of a larger push in Texas and beyond to increase the role of religion in schools.

passed the Senate 28-3, despite a federal court ruling that a similar Louisiana law violated a constitutionally required separation of church and state.

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The bill preliminarily passed the House 88-49 on Saturday — the Jewish Sabbath day. The Ten Commandments forbids work on that day, Rep. noted in an effort to highlight legislative hypocrisy. The lower chamber’s initial approval came after more than two hours of debate and despite last-ditch Democratic efforts to water down the law, including giving school districts the opportunity to vote on the policy, and adding codes of ethics from different faiths into the bill.

On Sunday, the House passed the bill 82-46, but clarified in it that the state would be responsible for any legal fees if a school district were to be sued over the policy. The bill now goes to Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it.

Sponsored by Sen. , a Republican from Weatherford, the bill requires every classroom to visibly display a poster sized at least 16 by 20 inches. The poster can’t include any text other than the language laid out in the bill, and no other similar posters may be displayed.

“It is incumbent on all of us to follow God’s law and I think we would all be better off if we did,” Rep. , a Republican from Lucas who is carrying the bill in the House, said during the floor debate Saturday.

Supporters argue that the Ten Commandments and teachings of Christianity more generally are core to U.S. history, a message that has resurged in recent years as part of a broader national movement that considers the idea of church-state separation a myth.

That movement fueled Texas’ push to require signs if they were donated by a private foundation — signed into law in 2021. In 2024, the State Board of Education approved Bible-infused teaching materials.

This session, lawmakers have advanced bills that , and one that would require teachers to use the terms “Anno Domini” (AD) — Latin for “in the year of the Lord,” and “Before Christ” (BC) when expressing dates.

Proponents of King’s bill also say making the Ten Commandments more prominent in schools will combat what movement leaders see as a generations-long moral decline.

Texas is one of 16 states where lawmakers have pursued the Ten Commandments bills.

Although the Supreme Court , supporters in Texas and beyond find support in the current makeup of the court’s justices and in the 2019 Supreme Court decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which found a football coach could lead prayers on the field after games.

But Robert Tuttle, a professor of religion and law at George Washington University, said allowing a private individual to pray — as in the Kennedy case — is different from displaying the Ten Commandments in the classroom.

Last June, a federal court struck down a — the first state this decade to pass such a law. The state is appealing the decision.

“The constant presence of a sacred text in the room with them is effectively telling them, ‘Hey, these are things you should read and obey,’” Tuttle said. “That’s not the state’s job — to do religious instruction.”

He also said that despite the Supreme Court trending in a more conservative direction, its decision Thursday that leaves in place a prohibition on the establishment of a could mean that the Court, for now, is not throwing out that principle.

During Texas legislative committee hearings, opponents from free speech and civil rights groups — — said the policy could send a message of exclusion to students of other faiths or those who don’t practice a religion. They also said the commandments were irrelevant to classes like math, and could prompt questions that were not age-appropriate, such as what adultery means.

The teachers union said it opposes the bill because members believe it violates the principle of separation of church and state.

“Public schools are not supposed to be Sunday school,” said spokesperson Clay Robison.

— who is studying to become a minister — raised concerns in House floor discussions Wednesday that the First Amendment forbids imposing a state-sponsored religion.

“My faith means more to me than anything, but I don’t believe the government should be forcing religion onto any American citizen, especially our children,” the Austin lawmaker told the Tribune. “I’m a Christian who firmly believes in the separation of church and state.”

This article originally appeared in at . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Republican politicians who accuse public school teachers of indoctrinating students with a “woke agenda” are pushing to bring religious chaplains into the same schools to provide counseling to students.

“I think Jesus is a lot better than a psychologist,” Rep. David Marshall, R-Snowflake, said during a March 11 meeting of the Arizona House of Representatives’ Education Committee.

Marshall said that he’s been a chaplain who provides counseling for 26 years.

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, sponsored by Flagstaff Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers, was modeled after similar legislation passed in recent years in Texas and Florida.

The proposal would give school districts the option of allowing volunteer religious chaplains to provide counseling and programs to public school students. Districts that decide to allow chaplains would be required to provide to parents a list of the volunteer chaplains at each school and their religious affiliation, and parents would be required to give permission for their child to receive support from a chaplain.

Despite ample concerns that the proposal violates the and that it would open up schools to legal liability for any bad mental health advice a chaplain might provide, the bill has already passed through the Senate on a party-line vote. The House Education Committee also approved it along party lines.

Rogers told the Education Committee that the existence of any requirement for the separation of church and state in U.S. law “was a myth,” adding that she sees no harm in bringing religion into public schools.

Rogers, a far-right extremist, has , and in 2022 , calling the attendees “patriots” and advocating for the murder of her political enemies.

She has also said she is “honored” to be and regularly trafficks in antisemitic tropes. And Rogers has , appeared on and aligned herself with .

Democrats on the committee raised the alarm that Rogers’ bill would violate the Establishment Clause by allowing chaplains with religious affiliations to counsel students, while not providing the same kinds of services to students who don’t follow a religion or who follow a less-common religion with no chaplains available to the school.

An amendment to the bill, proposed by committee Chairman Matt Gress, a Phoenix Republican, requires that the chaplains be authorized to conduct religious activities by a religious group that believes in a supernatural being. The amendment would also allow a volunteer chaplain to be denied from the list if the school’s principal believes their counsel would be contrary to the school’s teachings.

Both of these changes would allow districts to exclude chaplains from The Satanic Temple of Arizona, a group that and has chapters across the country that challenge the intertwining of Christianity and government.

Oliver Spires, a minister with The Satanic Temple of Arizona, voiced his opposition to Rogers’ bill during a Feb. 5 Senate Education Committee meeting.

The legislation, Spires said, would disproportionately impact students from minority religions who see Christian chaplains providing support to their peers while no chaplains representing their religion are available.

“If a district listed a Satanist on their chaplain list, would they have your support?” he asked the committee members.

Gress’s amendment would preclude that.

Gaelle Esposito, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, told committee members on Tuesday that school counselors are required to undergo specialized training to prepare them to help students — requirements that religious chaplains wouldn’t have to meet, even though they’d be providing similar services.

“They will simply not be equipped to support students dealing with serious matters like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self harm or suicidal ideation,” Esposito said. “Religious training is not a substitute for academic and professional training in counseling, health care or mental health… Even with the best intentions, chaplains may provide inappropriate responses or interventions that could harm students.”

But as Democrats on the House Education Committee argued that Arizona should provide more funding for trained counselors and social workers to help students with mental health issues, the Republicans on the panel said that students are actually struggling with mental health issues because they don’t have enough religion in their lives.

“I’ve heard that there is a mental health crisis afflicting kids,” Gress, a former school board member, said. “Now, I don’t necessarily think in many of these cases that something is medically wrong with these kids. I think, perhaps, there is a spiritual deficit that needs to be addressed.”

Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, said he’s been frustrated by the federal courts’ interpretation of the First Amendment to require the separation of church and state, claiming it has made the government hostile to religion instead of protecting it.

“I heard comments here today that this is going to harm kids — harm kids by being exposed to religion? That is absolutely the opposite of what is happening here today in our society,” Olson said. “We have become a secular society, and that is damaging our society. We need to have opportunities for people to look to a higher power, and what better way than what is described here in this bill?”

Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, of Tucson, called SB1269 “outrageous” and “incredibly inappropriate.”

And Rep. Stephanie Simacek, of Phoenix, pointed out that the courts have repeatedly ruled against allowing religious leaders to be invited to share their faith with public school students. She described Rogers’ bill as indoctrination that gives preferential treatment to students who have religious beliefs over those who don’t

“No one is saying that you may not go and celebrate your God, however you see fit,” Simacek, a former teacher and school board member, said. “But this is not the place, in public education, where our students go to learn math, reading and writing and history.”

Florida’s school chaplain law, which went into effect last July and is similar to Rogers’ proposal, has from First Amendment advocacy groups, as well as some church groups who said that allowing untrained chaplains to provide mental health support to students would have unintended negative consequences.

The option to bring chaplains into schools in Florida has not been particularly popular, with several large school districts deciding not to implement a program allowing them.

Proposed legislation similar to SB 1269 has been introduced in red states across the country this year, including in , , , and .

The bill will next be considered by the full House of Representatives. If it passes the chamber, it will return to the Senate for a final vote before heading to Gov. Katie Hobbs.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.

While its effort to buy Bibles for classrooms is tied up in court, the Oklahoma Department of Education initiated a new vendor search to purchase materials containing Bible-infused character lessons for elementary-aged students.

The department is looking to buy supplemental instructional materials containing age-appropriate biblical content that demonstrates how biblical figures influenced the United States. Additionally, the materials must emphasize virtues, significant historical events, and key figures throughout Oklahoma history, according to bid documents published Friday.

The doesn’t specify how many copies the state wants to buy, only that the vendor must be willing to ship directly to districts.

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Like the Bibles the department sought in the fall, this request could be challenged under the state constitution, which prohibits public money from being spent for religious purposes.

“This RFP seems to be another constitutional violation,” said Alex Luchenitser, an attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and one of the attorneys representing Oklahomans in the Bible lawsuit.

“It seeks to inject the Bible into public school curricula, and only refers to the Bible and doesn’t refer to any other religious texts, so it’s clearly a move to push Christianity,” he said.

The Education Department wants the character materials to align with Oklahoma’s new social studies standards, which have been revised to contain more than 40 references to the Bible and Christianity, compared to two in the current version. But the proposed standards haven’t been approved.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is expected to present the standards to the Board of Education at its next meeting, scheduled for Thursday. It will be the first time the board meets since Gov. Kevin Stitt three members. If approved, the standards will move to the Legislature for consideration.

The standards review committee included several nationally prominent conservatives: Dennis Prager of PragerU, David Barton of the Christian Nationalist organization Wallbuilders, and the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts.

While standards guide what schools are to teach, school districts have sole authority to choose curriculum and books.

In November, the state abruptly a search to , an effort that attracted criticism for appearing to exclude all Bibles except an expensive version endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Walters vowed to reissue that request, but a coalition of parents, students, teachers and faith leaders asked the Oklahoma State Supreme Court to block the purchase and Walters’ mandate to teach the Bible.

The Office of Management and Enterprise Services, the state’s central purchasing agency, also wants to wait. It asked the court for an order allowing it to delay the new Bible request for proposals until the case is resolved. Two OMES employees are named in the lawsuit.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

that would have required South Dakota public schools to display and teach the Ten Commandments failed to clear its final legislative hurdle Monday at the Capitol in Pierre as the state House to reject it.

State representatives engaged in a lengthy, impassioned debate. Opponents said the bill represented an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion, and warned of legal challenges.

Rep. David Kull, R-Brandon, referenced out-of-state support for the bill, including from Texas-based , which says it works to protect the nation’s “Biblical foundation.”

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“Make no mistake, this bill is an experiment, and we’re the lab rats, and the leading scientists from out of state are driving us,” Kull said. “The beauty for them is they aren’t at risk. Their money isn’t at risk — ours is.”

A similar bill adopted by Louisiana is being in court.

The South Dakota bill originally mandated that all public school classrooms feature 8-by-14-inch posters of the Ten Commandments with a three-part, 225-word statement explaining their historical significance. The bill was amended during the Monday debate to require only one display for each school, but the House rejected the bill even with the amendment.

Additionally, schools would have been required to incorporate lessons on the commandments at least once during elementary, middle and high school as part of civics and history classes.

Supporters of the bill said the Ten Commandments played a fundamental role in shaping American law and culture.

Rep. John Hughes, R-Sioux Falls, was among the lawmakers who said the commandments are needed in schools. He said the Judeo-Christian worldview is under attack.

“Our system of public education instructs our children that no god is responsible for how we came to be, for what purpose we were created, and for what becomes of us when we breathe our last breath on this earth,” he said.

Rep. Tim Goodwin, R-Rapid City, said he supported the bill even though the religious leaders and public school superintendents he talked to were against it.

Goodwin said he prayed about the bill and experienced a calmness that influenced his vote.

“The calmness had a voice saying to me, if one person comes to Christ because the Ten Commandments are posted, vote yes,” he said.

Rep. Keri Weems, R-Sioux Falls, said a government mandate is not the right way to spread Christianity.

“This is brought about by relationships,” she said, “not words on a wall.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com.

NEW ORLEANS – Three judges on the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals considered arguments Thursday over a state law that requires displays of the Ten Commandments in every Louisiana public school classroom.

A group of nine parents, each on behalf of their children, sued to block the law shortly after the Louisiana Legislature and Gov. Jeff Landry approved it last spring. A lower court ruled in November the requirement violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against establishing a state-approved religion.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill appealed that ruling, which the 5th Circuit decided only applied to the five school districts that are among the defendants in the case. For every other district, at the start of this month.

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The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are also representing the plaintiffs in the case. The law firm Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett is providing its services to the parents at no cost.

In addition to the five school districts, Louisiana Education Superintendent Cade Brumley and members of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education are defendants.

Judge Catharina Haynes led the hearing conducted via Zoom because of the winter weather. She  questioned why the law was approved when Solicitor General Benjamin Agiuñaga presented his arguments.

“I’m respectful of the Ten Commandments, and I think everybody is,” said Haynes, federal court appointee of former President George W. Bush. “But that doesn’t mean it has to be put in every classroom in a state under the First Amendment.”

Aguiñaga said the law’s language notes the historical significance of the commandments in the foundation of the U.S. legal system merits their display in classrooms.

In addition to defending the law, Aguiñaga argued the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit too hastily because the displays had not yet been posted and no children had been harmed. The judges must rule first on whether the parents had the right to sue before considering the merits of their case.

Aguiñaga cited a 2007 ruling from the 5th Circuit in the case Staley v. Harris County, which involved a memorial display outside a Texas courthouse that included a Bible. Appellate judges first upheld a lower court ruling that deemed the monument unconstitutional, but the 5th Circuit later reversed its decision. The ruling declared that because the monument was being refurbished, it wasn’t clear yet what it would look like or whether it violated the First Amendment.

Jonathan Youngwood, an attorney for the plaintiffs, countered that legal theory in First Amendment cases does not require plaintiffs to be harmed before they seek relief.

He also stressed the religious intent of the law’s author, Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, who he quoted as saying: “It is so important that our children learn what God says is right and what he says is wrong.”

Youngwood also noted “religious references” to God and the Sabbath day in the first four commandments, which he said violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

“Of course the Ten Commandments are worthy of great respect and are profoundly meaningful to many, many people, and they have a place in our society,” Youngwood said. “They don’t have a place in this form in public schools.”

Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, an appointee of President Joe Biden, asked Aguiñaga if he could cite any prior court decisions that allowed displays of the Ten Commandments in a school setting. He could not but instead referenced a ruling that allowed students who are Jehovah’s Witnesses to abstain from the Pledge of Allegiance.

“The fact that they are allowed under the First Amendment to opt out of participating in the pledge doesn’t mean that they can also request that the flag be taken down or that the pledge not be said,” Aguiñaga said.

Judge Haynes voiced some skepticism of Aguiñaga’s reference to the Staley case, noting that few people are compelled to go to a courthouse while children are required to go to school.

Judge James Dennis, who former President Bill Clinton appointed to the federal bench, also heard arguments Thursday.

Haynes said the appellate judges would do their best to render a decision in the near future.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill into law that will require school districts to create a mandatory religious instruction release time policy and require educators to out a students’ sexuality to their parents.

The law will take effect 90 days after DeWine signed the bill.

during the final day of the lame duck session in 2024 and LGBTQ advocates called on .

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State Reps. D.J. Swearingen, R-Huron, and Sara Carruthers, R-Hamilton, introduced . Supporters called the bill the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” while opponents called it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, due to its similar language to Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law that passed in 2022.

The bill requires public schools to let parents know about sexuality content materials ahead of time so they can request alternative instructions.

It also prohibits any sexuality content from being taught to students in kindergarten through third grade. H.B. 8 defines sexuality content as “oral or written instruction, presentation, image or description of sexual concepts or gender ideology.”

This bill is one of a few during the most recent General Assembly.

This new law strengthens Ohio’s existing law around religious release time by creating a mandate. Currently, Ohio allows school district boards of education to make a policy to let students go to a course in religious instruction during the school day, but this now becomes a requirement for Ohio school boards.

“Parents, not government bureaucrats, should be making healthcare and education decisions for their kids,” Center for Christian Virtue President Aaron Baer said in a . “H.B. 8 protects children by safeguarding parents’ rights to make important decisions for their children.”

The United States Supreme Court upheld religious 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.

Religious release time instruction must meet three criteria: the courses must take place off school property, be privately funded, and students must have parental permission.

a Hilliard-based religious instruction program, already enrolls students in about 160 Ohio school districts and celebrated the governor’s signing.

“All Ohio families have the freedom to choose off-campus religious instruction during school hours for their students,” LifeWise said in a statement.

Two central Ohio school districts, Westerville and Worthington, rescinded their religious release time policy last year. Both districts formerly allowed  off-campus for Bible classes during school hours.

“We are especially grateful that any local programs that had been put on hold will be able to resume their growing programs and that communities will now have the clarity they need to provide families with the opportunity to choose Bible-based character education for their child,” LifeWise said in a statement.

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.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A new office within the Oklahoma State Department of Education will promote expressions of religion and patriotism in public schools.

The head of the agency, state Superintendent Ryan Walters, announced Tuesday he established the Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism. He said the new division will align with incoming President Donald Trump’s aim of protecting prayer in schools.

The office will investigate alleged abuses against religious freedom and patriotic displays, according to a news release from the Education Department.

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Walters cited a September 2023 incident in which a from a classroom at the urging of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which contended it was unconstitutional for a public school to allow religious displays. At the time, Walters said the removal was “unacceptable.”

The that students and public school employees are permitted to pray on school grounds, but school employees cannot lead students in prayer or other religious activities while doing their jobs. The Court in public schools, finding it a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of government-established religion.

Walters said public schools have been “ground zero” for erosion of religious liberty. While calling church-state separation a “myth,” he , sought to and advocated for opening a in the state.

“It is no coincidence that the dismantling of faith and family values in public schools directly correlates with declining academic outcomes in our public schools,” Walters said in a statement Tuesday. “In Oklahoma, we are reversing this negative trend and, working with the incoming Trump Administration, we are going to aggressively pursue education policies that will improve academic outcomes and give our children a better future.”

A group of 32 parents, students, teachers and faith leaders from Oklahoma to block Walters’ Bible education mandate and to stop the use of state funds to buy Bibles. The plaintiffs are represented by multiple national legal groups, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

“Superintendent Ryan Walters cannot be allowed to employ the machinery of the state to indoctrinate Oklahoma’s students in his religion,” foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said last month. “Thankfully, Oklahoma law protects families and taxpayers from his unconstitutional scheme to force public schools to adopt his preferred holy book.”

Since the Nov. 5 election, Walters has been paving the way in the state Education Department for major policy changes from the next Trump administration, including the potential closure of the U.S. Department of Education. Trump has proposed eliminating the federal agency and sending education funds in block grants to states.

Among other policy goals, Trump has advocated for more patriotic education and giving parents a greater role in the public school system, including in the hiring and firing of principals.

Walters said Monday he is convening an advisory committee of Oklahoma education leaders and policymakers to implement the Trump education agenda.

The state superintendent similarly has supported pro-America education and patriotic displays. He invited right-wing policy advocates and conservative media personalities, most of whom live out of state, to help .

In August, Walters issued guidelines instructing all districts to develop a policy for displaying the U.S. flag. He did so while criticizing Edmond Public Schools, which had asked a high school student to remove an American flag from his truck.

The Edmond district did so because it had an existing policy prohibiting students from bringing flags of any kind to school. The district displays the American flag in front of every school and in each classroom, it said in a statement.

Walters quickly took aim at Edmond, saying “no Oklahoma school should tell students they can’t wave the American flag.”

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 .

A Louisiana law that will require schools to place displays of the Ten Commandments in every classroom is “coercive” and “unconstitutional,” according to the federal judge who issued an order Tuesday that stops the law from taking effect Jan. 1.

Nine families have sued the state, arguing the new law amounts to the state endorsing a religion and conflicts with the First Amendment.

Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill, who is defending the law that GOP Gov. Jeff Landry signed, maintains the Ten Commandments have historic standing as a foundational document for U.S. law.

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“We strongly disagree with the court’s decision and will immediately appeal,” Murrill said in a statement sent through her spokesman.

In a social media later in the day, the attorney general noted the ruling applies only to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the four parish school boards that are named defendants in the lawsuit.

“School boards are independently elected, local political subdivisions in Louisiana,” Murrill wrote. “Only five school boards are defendants, therefore the judge only has jurisdiction over those five. This is far from over.”

The new law requires 11-by-14-inch displays along with an accompanying “context statement” that explains the commandments’ role in education. It applies to any school that accepts state money, including colleges and universities. The schools are not compelled to spend money on the posters though they can accept donated materials.

U.S. District Judge John deGravelles, a federal court appointee of President Barack Obama to Louisiana’s Middle District Court in Baton Rouge, said in his that the plaintiffs would more than likely prevail in their case. He wrote that the law amounts to coercion because families must ensure their minor children attend school.

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The American Civil Liberties Union, which is among the organizations representing the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a victory for religious freedom.” The plaintiffs include non-Christian and nonreligious families.

“This ruling will ensure that Louisiana families – not politicians or public school officials – get to decide if, when and how their children engage with religion,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, another group representing the plaintiffs. “It should send a strong message to Christian Nationalists across the country that they cannot impose their beliefs on our nation’s public school children. Not on our watch.”

Defendants in the case include Louisiana K-12 Superintendent Cade Brumley, members of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the school boards from East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Tammany and Vernon parishes.

The plaintiffs argue Louisiana’s law violates the long-standing precedent from Stone v. Graham, a 1980 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a similar statute in Kentucky.

Landry welcomed a legal challenge of the new law before he signed it, predicting the Supreme Court would uphold the measure. He and other conservatives have been buoyed by a 2022 ruling from justices in favor of a high school football coach in Washington state who was fired after praying at midfield after games and allowing students to join him. After the 6-3 decision in Bremerton v. Kennedy, the coach was rehired at the school.

“I cannot wait to be sued,” the governor said at a June fundraiser for Republicans in Tennessee.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on and .

This article was updated on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024 at 4:40 p.m. with comments from the governor’s spokesperson.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders former Little Rock Christian Academy administrator Gary Arnold to the State Board of Education on Friday.

“What I love most about Gary is his passion for education, his belief that every student can learn and his relentless commitment and pursuit of his faith,” Sanders said in a press conference announcing the appointment.

Arnold is an advocate for school choice and was a member of the “rules and regulations task force” the state used to implement the wide-ranging , Sanders said.

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“Through Gary’s careful stewardship, the first school year with Arkansas LEARNS was a huge success, and the second year is shaping up to be even better,” Sanders said.

LEARNS created the Education Freedom Account program, a taxpayer-funded school voucher system that will be available to all Arkansas students in the 2025-26 school year; are participating in the program this year.

Sanders said Arnold will represent the interests of EFA participants during his term on the board, which will expire in 2027. He succeeds Steve Sutton, who stepped down from the board in the middle of his seven-year term.

“The Governor wanted to find the right, experienced addition to the Board of Education who could help put every student on the pathway to success, and that’s exactly what Gary will do,” Sanders’ communications director, Sam Dubke, said when asked why the governor took nearly 11 months to appoint Sutton’s successor.

Arnold is Sanders’ third appointee to the , after and last year. Former Republican state lawmaker Bragg co-authored the LEARNS Act, and Keener participated in a LEARNS work group focused on early childhood education, which is her area of expertise.

The LEARNS Act also raised the state’s minimum annual teacher salary to $50,000 and required literacy screenings for K-12 students.

Arnold praised these and other aspects of the LEARNS Act and said he was honored to accept the appointment and “the responsibility of joining this team.”

He likened working in education to author Mark Twain’s experience as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River in his memoir Life on the Mississippi, which Arnold said he recently reread.

“The most important function and job of the boat pilot is to learn the river, Old Man River, because it changes every day,” Arnold said. “One day the currents will be this way, one day there will be a tree or shoal that wasn’t there before… Life in the schools changes every day. We just have to learn the river and have that growth mindset.”

Sanders said both Arnold and Education Secretary Jacob Oliva “think deeply and critically about how we can fix the areas of our school system that are broken.”

Arnold was head of school at Little Rock Christian Academy from 2007 to 2023. He is now the Director of Head of School Certification at The Council on Educational Standards and Accountability and the founder of the consulting company NextEd. Both organizations serve Christian schools.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .

OKLAHOMA CITY — New guidance from Oklahoma City Public Schools regarding a state mandate to teach the Bible requires teachers to reference the text’s historical and literary aspects only in the “specific instances” that state academic standards allow.

In issuing the guidance on Wednesday, Superintendent Jamie Polk also advised teachers to document detailed lesson plans and not to stray from district-approved curriculum materials.

The Bible must “not be used for preaching or indoctrination,” and Oklahoma City schools, the state’s second largest district, must maintain “absolute neutrality and objectivity” when referencing it, Polk said.

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“Our goal is to provide a balanced, objective approach that respects diverse beliefs by adhering to both state requirements and federal laws and regulations,” she said in a memo to teachers, who returned to work this week.

Last month, state Superintendent Ryan Walters starting in the 2024-25 school year.

His mandate also includes a provision that all classrooms keep a copy of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Walters’ order aims to add extra guidelines to the state academic standards, which are a lengthy list of topics and concepts that Oklahoma public schools must teach.

The Bible is not mentioned in the existing standards for social studies, English language arts, fine arts or music — the subject areas Walters identified for Bible instruction. However, the social studies standards require schools to teach about major world religions and the role of religion in the establishment of some American colonial governments.

Walters’ guidelines seek a much deeper exploration of the Bible, including analysis of biblical passages, instruction on its influence in Western civilization and American history, and references to it in literature and fine arts.

“To ensure our students are equipped to understand and contextualize our nation, its culture, and its founding, every student in Oklahoma will be taught the Bible in its historical, cultural, and literary context,” Walters said in a statement on the mandate.

The order quickly became controversial over concerns for church-state separation and local control of school curriculum. Leaders of multiple school districts have since said their districts won’t implement more instruction on the Bible outside of what state standards already require.

Polk said her guidance is meant to give legal cover to teachers in case one of them faces a complaint.

“We have to protect teachers, and when this came out, one of the first things we did was we rallied together as a team, and I had the curriculum department at the table and I had the legal department at the table,” Polk said in an interview with Oklahoma Voice. “I asked the legal team, ‘If one of our teachers got in trouble because of the Bible, what would you need to defend them?’”

Documenting lesson plans, including the way teachers present the information to students, will be “essential,” she said.

The Center for Education Law, an Oklahoma City law firm that provides legal counsel to OKCPS, raised doubts over the viability of Walters’ Bible mandate. Any attempt by the state to direct how Oklahoma schools teach academic standards would infringe on local district authority and is “invalid under Oklahoma law,” the law firm wrote in a letter to schools.

Polk’s statement to teachers on Wednesday also referenced another, similarly polarizing announcement from Walters asking schools to provide a cost analysis of educating undocumented students. Walters said his administration would release guidance on the matter in the coming weeks.

Families don’t have to provide information on their immigration status to enroll their children in public schools. The Oklahoma City district doesn’t ask for these details, and Polk said it doesn’t plan to start doing so.

The recent orders created a tricky start this summer to Polk’s tenure as Oklahoma City’s superintendent, but after 36 years in education, she said she knows “there’s always something” that will stir debate.

She said she still aims to maintain a working relationship with the state Education Department to ensure students “receive what they need in order for them to have a diploma in one hand and a plan in the other as they walk across the stage.”

“The topics change, but there’s always conflict,” Polk said while looking back on the national controversies that erupted over past decades. “But as Americans, how do we navigate problems?

“How do we come to the table then and let me hear your voice so I can accept your viewpoint, but you too then get to hear my voice?”

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 .

Two Republican lawmakers are trying to strengthen an existing Ohio law by requiring — instead of just allowing — school districts to create a policy letting students to be excused from school to go to released time religious instruction.

State Reps. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, and Gary Click, R-Vickery, recently introduced and it has had one hearing so far in the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee.

“The correlation between religious instruction, schools, and good government are embedded in our constitution,” Click said in his written testimony. “You will notice that HB 445 does not establish which religion but merely acknowledges the opportunity for religious instruction. This opportunity is open to all faiths.”

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May vs. shall

Ohio law currently permits school district boards of education to make a policy to let students go to a released time course in religious instruction.

HB 445 would require school districts to create a policy and changing the wording of the existing law in the Ohio Revised Code from “may” to “shall.”

“While many schools have taken advantage of the permissive language of the law, some school boards have been less accommodating,” Click said. “Regardless of their intentions, their failure to implement a sound policy in this matter results in a denial of both the students’ and parents’ constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.”

Cutrona agreed with his co-sponsor.

“Words have meanings and they really do matter,” he said. “So the difference between a little word like may versus shall can make all the difference in the world.”

Released time religious instruction must meet three criteria which would remain the same under the bill: the courses must take place off school property, be privately funded, and students must have parental permission.

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.

State Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, R-Ashtabula, questioned why this bill is needed if the law is already in place.

“My experience has been that if the federal law requires it, school districts are usually very hesitant to violate federal law or federal practice,” she said during a recent committee hearing. “I’ve just wondered why you want to see that change also in the state law if it’s already required in practice.”

Click said he knows nearly a dozen school districts that have denied religious instruction programs like LifeWise Academy, an Ohio-based religious instruction program that teaches the Bible.

“I believe that when we clarify this language, it will make a more broad statement that this is not only constitutional and legal, but it is something that needs to be done in the state of Ohio to accommodate parents and their children,” Click said.

LifeWise Academy

Click mentioned LifeWise Academy in his testimony.

“(LifeWise founder) Joel Penton began to organize and create an efficient model that provided training for instructors, character-based bible curriculum, and a platform that is reliable and reputable for participating schools,” Click said. “…While this opportunity is not limited to LifeWise, they have formulated the model program for release time for religious instruction.”

, launched in two Ohio school districts in 2019 and today enrolls nearly 30,000 students across more than 12 states. The program will be in more than 170 Ohio school districts by next school year — more than a quarter of the state’s school districts.

LifeWise, which is non-denominational, supports the bill.

“It gives parents the freedom to choose character-based religious instruction for their children during the school day, in accordance with Supreme Court rulings,” Penton, the founder of LifeWise, said in a statement.

However, there has been pushback to LifeWise.

Freedom From Religion Foundation Legal Fellow Sammi Lawrence wrote a letter to from taking place in their district.

“Per its own words, LifeWise’s goal is clear: they seek to indoctrinate and convert public school students to evangelical Christianity by convincing public school districts to partner with them in bringing LifeWise released time bible classes to public school communities,”  said.

have also sprung up before the program comes to a school district.

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 .

The court’s conservative majority handed down in favor of the plaintiffs, a group of parents who argued that their preferred schools were unconstitutionally excluded from Maine’s state tuition initiative. The case, Carson v. Makin, focused on the question of whether such programs — which pay for children to attend private schools in cases where their own rural communities don’t have public high schools — can mandate that only “nonsectarian schools” be included.

Attorneys debated the ruling’s scope, with some asserting that it could pave the way for publicly funded charter schools with openly religious orientations.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that explicitly prohibiting families from using public dollars to pay for tuition at religious schools amounted to a violation of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, which upholds the liberty of citizens to practice their religion as they see fit.

“The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools — so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion,” Roberts wrote. “A State’s antiestablishment interest does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise.”

In this, Roberts echoed his own 2020 ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. That case similarly concerned a state tax-credit scholarship that sought to prevent recipients from choosing parochial schools. Many legal scholars believed the 5-4 decision called into serious question the applicability of “no-aid provisions” in state constitutions (sometimes referred to as Blaine amendments), which forbid state funds from supporting churches or other religious institutions.

The plaintiffs in Carson, who wished to send their children to Christian schools in Bangor and Waterville, were represented by lawyers from the Institute for Justice, a prominent libertarian law firm. Lead attorney Michael Bindas said that the ruling was somewhat limited because in most states, voucher or other private school choice programs already permit the participation of religious schools.

But it could still impact the future adoption of such programs in state legislatures, Bindas argued. Often, detractors argue that the provision of public funds to religious institutions is simply unconstitutional. Carson “takes that argument off the table completely,” he said.

“It makes absolutely clear that a state can have a school choice program, and if it does, it has to remain neutral between religion and non-religion. It cannot exclude a parent’s choice of school simply because it is religious or teaches religion. Therefore this argument that religion must be excluded — or that a program is somehow impermissible because it includes religion — is just a non-issue now.

John Taylor, a law professor at the West Virginia University College of Law, said the decision further weakened the existing precedent set in the 2004 Locke v. Davey case, in which a majority argued that the state of Washington could prevent beneficiaries of a publicly funded college scholarship from studying to become pastors. Given both Espinoza and Tuesday’s decision, Taylor said, the scope of that litigation is now considerably narrowed.

“After today’s opinion, Locke is just a case saying states may refuse to fund the training of ministers,” he wrote in an email. “Aside from the narrow factual context of Locke, the law now leaves no room for states that wish to require a greater degree of separation between church and state than the Federal Constitution requires.”

But a further controversy will outlast the debate over voucher and tax-credit programs. Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissent, posed a question that also hung over earlier decisions: If states can no longer discriminate against private religious academies when disbursing aid, could public schools — most notably charter schools — also decide to adopt religious missions?

“What happens once ‘may’ becomes ‘must’?” Breyer asked. “Does that transformation mean that a school district that pays for public schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to send their children to religious schools? Does it mean that school districts that give vouchers for use at charter schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to give their children a religious education?”

Bindas called that possibility an “unwarranted concern.”

“Public schools, including charter schools, are public; the government not only can, but must ensure that public schools are non-religious,” he observed. “The issue arises when the government has a program that includes private options, and it’s at that point that government cannot single out and exclude religious private options.”

But Derek Black, a professor at the University of South Carolina Law School and frequent critic of education reform, wrote in an email that states might have to dismantle their entire apparatus of school choice programs in order to prevent them from being exploited by religious operators.

“This case throws fuel on the fire of those arguing that states must allow churches to operate public charter schools and teach religion as truth inside of them,” Black argued. “If that comes to fruition, states will have lost all control over the education they try to ensure for children, even in charter schools that call themselves public. That possibility is so radical — and radically at odds with public interests — that the only responsible choice for states is to entirely shut down their charter and voucher school programs, lest the state be forced to fund education that does not align with state values and curriculum.”