EATON — Eaton Community School Board’s policy regarding released time for religious instruction continued to be a topic of discussion and debate during the public participation portion of the board’s meeting on Monday, May 13.

The visitors who spoke were each allotted three minutes.

Rachel Snell spoke in favor of the LifeWise program being held during school hours, sharing some of her own life history.

“My elementary school years were trauma-filled. It was just one of my divorced parents’ homes, but part-time trauma left full-time marks. One human was always with me, protecting me, and took the brunt of the abuse — my first best friend, my protector, was my big sister Naomi,” Snell began. “Full-time trauma which was more for her took its toll on Dec. 28, 2000. Naomi shot herself.

“We’re called survivors after a passing by suicide. I survived grief by the hope of heaven. Naomi accepted Jesus as Savior at age six. Although she was abused and robbed of joy and hope all through childhood, they couldn’t take her salvation. Knowing Jesus died for me to have the hope of heaven, how can I sit back and do nothing while you cheat these great kids, some that go home to full time trauma, and you cheat them out of hearing about the one true God who loves them enough to die for them.

“I planned to talk about the laws because they say give students released time for religious instruction, but you know that, so I’m talking about why to apply them. Before the First Amendment and all the laws and policies, 2,000 years ago Jesus came to show us how to live lives full of ups and downs, joys and heartbreaks, with the hope of heaven and peace that passes understanding.

“He taught us to love others more than we love ourselves and pray for our enemies. Impossible? No. He left His Holy Spirit to live in our hearts when we trust Him and Savior to empower us to live this way where we return evil with good and we praise him even when we lose everything or like me, we lose our person,” she continued. He accomplished all this by taking the punishment for our wrongdoings and dying on a cross, paying our debt. The living God loved you so much that he died so you can live eternal life with Him and to give you hope to live through this messy life. He rose.”

Snell continued, “We have students whose childhoods right now make mine look like Disney. They endure poverty, neglect, physical or sexual abuse, on a level we can’t comprehend. We see kids full of anger and hurt and you see them bring a gun to school twice like the eighth grader who brought one to school Sept. 5-6, or we see five-year-olds make threats at recess like Sept. 28. Mr. Parker’s (superintendent) said that there have been multiple incidents of threats, and the district will continue to examine and review our approach with students. LifeWise is the approach needed.”

“We don’t always know these kids whole story but we don’t have to because Jesus does,” Snell said. “He sent LifeWise to our school to help him and maybe even save lives. LifeWise students are taught they’re valued, and Jesus loved them enough to die for them. We teach how to walk out life in kindness, courage, respect, and hope. There’s no approach you can examine that will give them hope, like Jesus will.”

Snell went on to question whether the board in August would give the students the released time for religious instruction “they’re entitled to.”

District resident Sam Stuart also spoke in favor of the LifeWise program being permitted during school instructional hours.

“All of us being here means we have a vested interest in the lives of children, to see them become responsible, respectful and loving members of our community,” Stewart told the board. LifeWise is complimentary to scholastic learning. Even the school in government acknowledges the benefits of teaching children correct morals and responsible attitudes. We all know students who struggle sometimes from weak family foundations. A sense of family is missing from government-sponsored moral teaching. LifeWise exposes children to a family and a Father. Jesus is and can be for them the compass used to form a positive mindset.”

He continued, “All across the community, students are struggling to find their place and our society crumbles beneath the fanatical ways children and young adults attempt to mend these issues. God through LifeWise can be this solution. A school program offered during school hours incentivizes students to attend, not to strip away the students’ involvement in other aspects of learning, such as art or music, but to amplify them by making LifeWise auxiliary to the whole development of the child.”

“What classroom environment would suffer if students spend time learning God’s teachings with friends and in familiar places where they have been taught for years?” Stewart questioned. “If the separation of church and state binds your thoughts on the matter, rest assured that this separation is wholly defined as the government having no right to create a state sanctioned church that forces the worship of it by its citizens. It does not mean that religious instruction cannot be a part of state-funded schooling.”

He continued, “In fact, it was not until the early 20th century with the rise of evolution did religious instruction become uncommon in schools. Myself and many more parents know that the upbringing of our children is the most important part of our existence. LifeWise is important to those who advocate for it. We want our children to learn and play learning stories from the Bible alongside other children. Not all churches provide this instruction. Many do not have the numbers. Children who do not attend church with their parents do not attend church. With their parents approval they can learn Christian ethics alongside their peers.

“People become what they are most surrounded by. Why not surround the children of our community with love, not just love for the sake of it, but the real meaning of love? Patient unkind, not jealous, or proud nor irritable, joyful, over truth, never ceasing and always hopeful,” Stewart concluded. “If your worry is for the teachers, LifeWise and the parents supporting it are the ones encouraging our children to practice art, music and reading. If those positions ever came under fire, we would be the same parents advocating their continuation because we want our children to grow from a variety of mediums. We are all working together to ensure a good community. Your parents, the church, the schools — we should not be in opposition or competition but be unified. For the children.”

Longtime educator and former school board member Teresa Schmidt spoke on behalf of not having released time for religious instruction during the school day.

“I have always valued education,” Schmidt said. “I believe it is important to have a well-rounded education not only for reading, math, science, social studies, spelling, grammar, history writing, but also to have classes referred to as specials, such as art music, visit and library. These specials are important and valuable in the development of our children’s art and music allow for creative expression because it helps children develop not only physically but mentally. Students who are gifted and talented and excel on these areas many times have very successful careers.

“In a school year there are 36 weeks and if children are pulled out of one or more of these each week, they would miss 36 days, or maybe more of instruction. Teachers of the specials many times work with the regular classroom teachers to coordinate and expound on their lessons. Missing these classes would be detrimental to their education,” Schmidt said. “There are around 18 churches in the Eaton Community. If several churches wished to start a program during the school day and asked to have children released to attend would this board be okay with that and approve each one? If you approve one, you must also allow all to do the same. If all the churches or maybe even a few were allowed to pull our children from school, these classes would be a lot smaller and maybe even empty. It would be like a minister preaching to one or two members or even an empty church.”

“I am a Christian. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I don’t want anyone pointing their finger at me and insinuating that I am not a Christian, because I am not in favor of releasing children from school to attend a church or religious instruction,” she continued. “If I were sitting where you are and the church I belong to wanted to take children out of school for religious education, I would vote no. Eaton is a public school, not private. There is plenty of time after school and during the summer, Saturdays and Sundays for that education.

“When our founding fathers deemed it necessary to have separation of church and state, it was so that the government would remain neutral toward all religions and not recognize or favor any one religion. We do not need to have issues and policies that cause division among our students, our families and our churches in this community. Important decisions like this should not be rushed. It would be prudent for this board to get a pulse on this issue from a cross section, not just a slice, but a cross section that would be a better realistic view of the entire community.”

District resident Margie Benge also spoke out against released time for religious instruction during school hours.

“I started hearing about LifeWise a year ago and I’ve done my own research. I would like to address two points regarding the topic of religious release time. The first is the negative impact this program might have on our teachers. I am from a family of four generations of educators. My mother, Lindy Waddlington, was one of the founders of the kindergarten program, and later the special ed program. Teachers are stretched thin, with a multitude of requirements and challenges before them. Every teacher has state mandates that they’re required to meet. Yes, even teachers of specials. To me, pulling students out of specials is disrespectful to the teachers that have dedicated their careers to their subject matter. Research has shown that music and art enhance brain development, creativity and problem solving skills. And as a pediatric therapist, I can attest that recess and physical education are essential for kids that have ADHD, sensory irritation and tension issues.”

She continued, “Teachers are the heart and soul of our public education system. I’m curious as to if anyone, or the board, has asked individual teachers how children leaving during the school day would affect them. I would like to make sure that that is done and every teacher’s opinion is listened to.

“My second concern is the negative impact (it) might have on students for developing compassion for all world religions and cultures. If LifeWise comes into the school day, it is important for everyone to understand the curriculum and how the program works. Even though it’s off school grounds, it is during the school day, and children will interpret that as being school enforced. It sets children up for conflict with each other, when some attend and some don’t and are being taught conflicting information. The curriculum comes from Lifeway, a Baptist publishing company. So even among mainline Christian churches, there would be differing opinions regarding theology,” she noted.

Benge went on to note a leader in the Catholic church had written an opinion that the “statement of faith and the curriculum utilized by LifeWise are at odds with the teaching of the Catholic Church,” and a First Presbyterian leaders said they “may agree on essentials like the Nicene Creed, but we vary in the finer points of theology and faith practices.”

“She goes on to say that do not support the LifeWise Academy practice of pulling students out of public school,” Benge noted. “There are many good Christian churches in our community. I trust our good God to reach children and families through the variety of people in churches. Our children from a small rural Eaton, Ohio need to be prepared for compassion and understanding in a global world.”

Educator, parent and Preble County Career Connections Director Harold Niehaus also spoke at the meeting.

“I wanted to address the board this evening to share my desire for Eaton Community Schools to do all they can to continue to serve the students with quality public education,” Niehaus began. “As a taxpayer in the school system and a longtime educator, I wanted to share the following, and first I just wanted to share some quick math.

“As educators we only have students 33.75 hours per week. This includes time with students in core classes, specials, lunch and recess. Parents and community groups have these students for another 134.25 hours for the remainder of the week. From those numbers you can see that public education only has 20 percent of the students’ time during 70 percent of the year. The other 30 percent of the year, students can be connected to their parents and community groups for 100 percent of the time,” he pointed out.

He continued, “My second point, the importance of serving the whole child while they’re at school is so important. While students are in the care of our teachers and staff to help students learn academics, explore healthy living, experience the humanities and the arts, and grow through socializations that take place during lunch and recess, the school day is well-planned and every minute is used for the benefit of every child.

“I do have concerns for any programming that would disrupt this whole child approach we have, and also have concerns for the safety and logistics of any programming of scale that would have an effect on the culture of our schools, especially when there’s plenty of time in a young person’s schedule outside of school hours to serve them and their needs, through the services being provided by our community. I have a desire as a taxpayer and lifelong educator to have work continue to guard the precious time we have employed the school system and the school district to provide high quality education for our children, for our teachers and staff value each and every child,” Niehaus closed.

Others in attendance requested to speak, but had not asked to be on the agenda 72 hours in advance of the meeting.

“We respect everyone who has come out tonight and has shown up tonight, and the five presenters here tonight that have given their time and done their research and shared their feelings and opinions and thoughts. And we respect all of that. And we thank you,” Board President Lisa Noble said.

“There’s a lot of information. I appreciate everybody that spoke tonight and the information that they’ve shared with this,” board member Ben Myers told those in attendance. “Being a pastor on the school board and public education puts me in an odd place sometimes, you know, especially on a topic of religious instruction during the school day. People automatically think ‘hey, that guy’s a pastor. That’s the reason he’s on the school board.’ I didn’t know anything about LifeWise Academy when I ran for school board the first time.

“People said hey, that pastor ran to get on the school board to get LifeWise Academy in the schools.’ I was already elected before I ever heard of it. And then I was aware of the released time for religious instruction from other ministries that I served in prior to coming here, but I’d never seen a program like LifeWise so I just wanted to clarify a few things for our community.

“Some things that have been said, rumors about myself or conflict of interest and with me being on the board and being a pastor,” Myers added. “I always think we should be people of character. If somebody has a question about something come to somebody and talk to him. You know, I was told the other day that I’m profiting from released time religious instruction as a school board member. And I said, ‘Well, how am I profiting?’ They said, ‘Well, your wife is working for LifeWise Academy.’ My wife served as a volunteer, unpaid interim director. So, we have not profited financially from LifeWise Academy. And she has served in that role just to help in our community. Her jobs have changed and so she’s no longer serving in that role, but we have not profited there. The other day they said ‘well, how do we know that?’ I’ll show you my tax returns you can see that we’ve never received any income.”

Myers continued, “And then I had somebody say ‘hey, LifeWise Academy bought your church a piece of property.’ LifeWise Academy did not buy our church piece of property. So that rumor I can put that to rest as well. The property our church just purchased, we’ve had first right of refusal on since 2018. So it has nothing to do with LifeWise Academy.”

“I heard somebody else say this well, ‘you’re on the board to get people into your into your church.’ Being a pastor involved in public education deters some people from coming to our church because they don’t believe a pastor should be involved sometimes in public education, but I love our community. I love serving in our community. And this is a way that I get to do that in another role alongside being a pastor. I believe parents have the right to decide what is best for their students. And this policy we’ve had the policy since 2015, before I was on the board, and this policy gives parents the right to choose what they decide is best for their students. I believe parents have that right. It’s a God-given right. It’s the responsibility of the school board here to set policy, which is very important policy, that is good to keep order, but at the same time released time for religious instruction is above our pay grade,” he said. “The Supreme Court ruled on it 72 years ago and made that available to parents should they so choose.”

“I believe the Supreme Court, when they made that ruling in 1952, they were giving parents the right to decide what they wanted for their kids when it came to released time religious instruction that they could choose if a child would go to library or released time religious instruction. The parents have the right to make that decision. The Supreme Court backs that right. And I believe as a board member, I know not everybody will agree with me. But if this board does revoke or deny the right to released time religious instruction, I believe we are saying we know better than the parents and we do not desire to work with the parents,” he continued.

“The board policy that has been addressed tonight, 5223, first line says the ‘Board of Education desires to cooperate with those parents who wish to provide for release or for religious instruction for their children but also recognizes its responsibility to enforce the attendance requirements of the state.’ The policy gives us the requirements, the policy gives us guidelines. Those guidelines were given to us by the Supreme Court of the United States. And I believe as a board member I want to cooperate with parents and if there are many programs in our community for released time,” Myers said.

“It’s the parents’ choice. I believe it should be the parents’ right to decide what program their child attends, as long as it meets the requirements that have been set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States and our own state that we live in. It’s the parents’ right, the parents’ choice,” he continued.

“I’ve been on the board now for several years. We want to have a unified front with this thing. But I wanted to share those things because I know there’s a lot of questions. I’ve received the emails that there’s a board member conflict of interest. There’s no conflict of interest. I’ve met with our school attorney. I’ve met with my personal attorneys to make sure that I was doing everything right, doing everything aboveboard and for those that have spread those rumors, I don’t know who they are. But I’d love to talk to them some time and share my heart for this community and the work that we that we do,” Myers concluded.

The board took no action on the issue at the meeting, but Superintendent Jeff Parker addressed it during his report later in the meeting.

“I want to thank the speakers that we had here tonight, all five of them. I am very appreciative of their professionalism and their respect. And I think that’s very important when we start to talk about things that maybe we’re passionate about on both sides of an issue,” Parker said.

“I’m going to be very intentional that what I’m about to share is for everyone who has a belief or an opinion on the issue discussed at the beginning of this meeting. None of what I’m going to share is meant to send one message to one belief or opinion and not the other. Please know that this comes from my heart that I have all of our children at number one, and anybody who knows me knows I am fairly decent at trying to look all the way around issues. And I feel that’s a very important thing for somebody in my position. When I was a high school principal, it was very important to have that, in order to try to be like best at being fair.

“This is my community too. I’ve lived here since 1998,” he continued. “I’ve mentioned already and I’m proud that all four of my children graduated from here. Debbie, my wife, and I have many deep relationships and friendships in this community. Some of you are in the audience tonight. Some were in the audience and have left already. Many are not in the audience. Some of you are my colleagues. Some of you are not my colleagues. I remind all of you of this because this is not something that impacts me lightly.

“However, I feel I must look at this through the lens of a suit my superintendent role. I must consider all dynamics,” Parker noted, explaining the superintendent’s opinion is irrelevant. “The superintendent is not a policy maker. Do I have an opinion? No — the truth is, I have a few but none of these mean I’m right or that I’m wrong.

“What I do believe is that each of you and just about everyone who has a strong opinion or belief one way or another cares deeply about our children. What I know is that every one of these teachers here, and the ones not here, care deeply about our children. What I know is that each one of these five board members cares deeply about our children. Their opinions may differ, but what I know is that each one cares deeply about our children.

“What I know from Miss Snell, and I don’t know her that well, but she’s dedicated her life to being a preschool teacher and that I have no doubt she cares deeply about our children. Moving forward, no matter how this issue turns out. What I hope everyone keeps in mind — not just those who are here or who were here, but also those who are not — is that we have almost 2,000 children that we serve and almost 2,000 children that are looking at all of us. The fact that there is some disagreement in this issue, in my opinion, is not as important as how we disagree, and how we serve as role models for those 2000 children.

“I always told my own children stand up for what you believe,” Parker concluded. “But always be respectful and always listen. And finally, I did always remind them: judge not lest you be judged.”

RELEASED TIME FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

The Board of Education desires to cooperate with those parents who wish to provide for religious instruction for their children but also recognizes its responsibility to enforce the attendance requirements of the State.

Students may be provided “released time” from school to attend a course in religious instruction conducted by a private entity off District property, provided that the following requirements are met, such students will not be considered absent when the:

student’s parent or guardian gives consent in writing;

sponsoring entity maintains attendance records and makes them available to the District;

sponsoring entity provides and assumes liability for the student; and

student assumes responsibility for any missed school work.

Transportation of students to and from Released Time instruction is the complete responsibility of the sponsoring entity, the parent, guardian, and/or student. The Board of Education, its members, and employees are immune from liability for any injuries arising from transportation to and from Released Time instruction. Further, no Board funds will be expended for, and no District personnel shall be involved in the provision of religious instruction.

Students shall not be excused from a core curriculum subject course to attend Released Time instruction.

The Board may give up to 2 units of high school credit for an approved Released Time religious instruction course. The Board will evaluate the course based on secular criteria including, but not limited to:

the number of hours of instructional time;

a review of the course syllabus that reflects course requirements and materials used;

the assessment methods used in the course; and

the instructor’s qualifications, which shall be similar to the qualification of other teachers in the District.

The decision as to whether to provide credit for a specific Released Time religious instruction course will be neutral as to religious content and will not involve any test for religious content or denominational affiliation.

Staff members shall not promote or discourage participation in release time programs for any religious instructional program. Nothing herein shall constitute an endorsement of religion or infringe upon an individual’s First Amendment rights.

© Neola 2016

Legal

Attorney General’s Opinion 88-001

R.C. 3313.6022

Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.