In the United States released time is a concept that allows public school students to (with parental consent) leave campus to receive privately funded religious instruction off-premis during the school day. I believe in strict separation of church and state, but I never considered this problematic. It seems like a reasonable accommodation for parents wanting religious instruction for their children without having to choose private school. I was aware of the concept when I was a kid, but was never aware of anyone doing it (at least until high school when some students would occasionally not be in school for something church related).
All that being said apparently this has become an issue in Ohio. LifeWise Academy is presenting a certain version of Christianity that many people will feel a certain way about, but parents are within their rights to have their children receive such instruction. I’m not questioning their legal right to do so. However this article is raising valid concerns with implementing released time in practice that haven’t occurred to me.
There are real logistical issues when a significant portion (or even a majority) of a schools students are participating in the program. Especially in elementary schools where students typically spend the most of the day together as a class with same teacher (except for art, music, & gym). This article describes stuff like non-particpating students basically being given study halls instead of having class time. It’s not really fair that they’re missing out on instructional time, especially since presumably all their teachers on campus. Which even LifeWise itself isn’t supposed to be happening.
There’s also the issue of students other students bullying under the guise of proselytizing, but that would be an issue even if this program wasn’t during school hours). And with elementary students presumably school staff need to take time away from their other duties round up the students being released, verify they have the right students, verify the identity of the person picking them up, sign them out, sign them back in again, and make sure that everyone who left actually returned. None of that’s an issue even dealing with individual students or small groups, but I can see how disruptive it would be en mass. There’s also bound to be students who’s parents signed them up, but don’t want to participate which puts the school in a weird position.
What’s your take on this? Do you have any experience with released time as a student/parent/etc? Do any other countries have something similar? Alot of countries have religious education as a regular school subject, which is not the same thing. IIRC in Australia some public schools let parents opt-in to on premises religious instruction by volunteers.
When I was a kid, growing up Catholic, but attending a non-Catholic grade school, it was expected that one would attend CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine), or catechism, classes, in order to receive proper religious education. But, those were held on Saturday mornings, not during the week, so it was additional class time, above and beyond normal school time.
I graduated from high school in 1984, so I finished elementary school (K through sixth grade) in 1978 and I vaguely remember some kids left early one day a week for “catechism”, apparently some sort of religious education for Catholic kids. Meanwhile, I think some Jewish kids had Hebrew school on Saturdays.
I graduated from high school in 1985 and I don’t remember anything like this and I had a few Catholic friends (some who when to the private Catholic school and some who were in public school with me) and lots of Jewish friends.
Of course, me not remembering it doesn’t mean much but it doesn’t ring a bell.
I saw a PBS program a while back about a mother who protested her sons doing this, in the 1940s, and successfully had the program ended. She actually took this to the Supreme Court - in 1948! The program was called “The Lord Is Not On Trial Here” and the family lived in Champaign, Illinois.
I graduated from a public high school in 1981, and our school had a chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, as an extracurricular activity. That’s OK, IMHO. (The teacher who headed it was very popular with students, but TBH he really wasn’t a very good teacher, and a few years after we graduated, he left education and went to work for FCA full time; I heard he retired a few years ago.)
I was raised Catholic, and grew up in a heavily Catholic neighborhood. Every Wednesday afternoon, all us Catholic kids (probably about 3/4 of the class) would trudge over to the nearby Catholic school for catechism. I understand that the remaining students would mostly do busywork while we were gone. The arrangement seemed odd to me even at the time. As a parent, I would NOT be ok with my son losing 10% of his school time so that adherents of one particular religion could have religious instruction during normal school hours.
Grew up in San Diego, class of 2001. I don’t think any such thing existed in California, at least not when I was in school. Hispanic kids were a near-majority in the schools I went to, and those families were overwhelmingly Catholic, but I assume they did their religious education after school or on the weekends. Ditto for the Mormon kids, of whom there weren’t many, but I probably knew more Mormons in school than I did Jews.
I don’t think it’s appropriate for reasons others have mentioned above. My daughter was religiouly bullied by her, " friends." As a substitute teacher, I had to rescue a girl being cornered by two other girls, telling her she was going to hell etc. unless she said she believed in god. Religion has no place in school or shoehorned into the school day.
I grew up Lutheran and there was a K-8 Lutheran parochial school in town. I went there for first grade, but we moved and were so close to a public school my folks switched me over. In the church school there were periods for religious instruction. And when seventh grade came around those students got their confirmation instruction in class. I however had to go to class on Saturday mornings, grumble.
We had Catholic schools when I grew up in Toronto, and they included Catholic religious instruction during the school day as part of the curriculum. But Catholic kids were welcome to attend public schools if their parents wished, as long as they attended Catholic religious instruction outside of school.
As I recall from knowing a few Catholic kids at our public school, that was once or twice a week, usually after regular school. Made it difficult at times to choose up teams for after-school road hockey, when a couple of our best players were off at religion classes.
But they were not excused for religion classes during the regular public school day. Neither were the Jewish kids. If you wanted your kids to learn religion, it would be outside of regular public school.
As long as parents are able to take their kids out of school for ANY reason, without repercussions, I think it’s fine. If I want to take my kid out of school for three hours every day to go to a movie that should be allowed. I’m guessing that isn’t allowed, but it’s just as valid in my mind.
'Zactly. Parents can school their kids however they want on their own time. But the public school curriculum is X hours at Y times doing Z studies and everybody gets all of it.
At our Montreal Protestant (the name of the school commission, but it was for all non-Catholic students) elementary school in the late 50s/early 60s, several kids that were raised as “high Anglicans” always came into school late on days such as Ash Wednesday and All Saints Day.
And the Jewish kids always had their days off (marked as “J.H.” on the school board calendar at the front of every classroom). They had Hebrew classes after school - not during school hours.
We always had short Bible readings and a hymn or two every morning.
During those years, the Catholic schools were dominated by (usually strict) teaching nuns, and the Catholic doctrine was drilled into the students - often with mandatory chapel or church attendance (during or outside of school hours)…
Same. All the Catholic kids in my elementary school class (about 80% of the kids) went to CCD after school in Wednesday, when school ended early. That was back when the school assumed there was a mother at home all day, and in fact, we were sent home for lunch and then returned to school after lunch.
In junior high, most of the Jewish kids went to Hebrew school after school on Tuesday. If the Catholics still attended CCD, it was also later in the day, as they certainly didn’t leave early, and the school didn’t have an early Wednesday release.
Other religious groups presumably did religious education, too, but it was all outside of school hours.
This sounds familiar. My kids public school offered bible release time. A flyer was sent home offering a church bus pick up to some fundie church in a pole barn building miles away. No contact info no names no phone numbers. I don’t remember what the rest of the kids did at school during that time. No way did I give permission. And yeah the fundie kids were bullies about speech and clothing in other kids. One little girl tattled to the teacher that my kid was saying oh. My. God. OMG. I told the teacher to tell that little shit stain to back off or her parents could come talk to me. But I said it sweetly bless her heart.
One of the few real arguments I’ve gotten in to on Facebook was when a guy I went to school with was losing his mind over students leaving school for a half hour one day for a peaceful protest after the Parkland shooting. He was fuming that the kids would lose a precious half hour of instruction time!!! (This from a guy who missed a lot of schooling himself by being too drunk or stoned or delinquent to pay attention)
I guarantee you he would be all for this leaving school for religious instruction.
I attended a Catholic school that housed a released time program. This was back in the days when students went home for lunch. Our school day ended at noon on Wednesday and at 1 or 2 pm , the CCD classes would start. This was only for students below junior high / intermediate school - junior high age classes were after-school, possibly in the evening.
I don’t think it was a matter of
the other students losing instructional time or doing busywork but it may have been that non-academic classes were scheduled for that time period. I say that because I had some public school friends whose parents absolutely wouldn’t have sent them to CCD if they would miss math or English but missing art or gym might have been OK with them.
I don’t know if released time still happens since nowadays children often don’t go to school in the neighborhood where they live.
My public school just let everyone in elementary school out Wednesday afternoon, and scheduled as many hours of instruction as the state required at other times. That probably was coordinated with the local Catholic Church, as there were a huge number of Catholic kids. But no one was singled out and no one missed secular school instruction.
And i don’t know when the Catholic kids had religious instruction after elementary school, but it wasn’t during the school day.
Which even LifeWise itself isn’t supposed to be happening.