Oklahoma bill aims to safeguard public schools allowing students to attend religious instruction off-campus

A bill in Oklahoma would lay out the framework for public schools to let students leave during the school day to receive religious or moral instruction.

Oklahoma has codified the right for students to receive religious instruction during school hours for years, but House Bill 1425, which recently passed the state Senate 38-7, effectively provides the guidebook to school districts on how to implement a religious release program properly.

“It gives clarity on how public schools can literally provide a religious piece in their education,” Republican state Rep. Clay Staires, the author of the bill, told the Washington Examiner. “We know that there is a growing number of parents that are concerned, and some even concerned enough to leave public schools, because they want a religious piece in their their children’s education.”

“There are so many people that love their public school,” Staires added. “They don’t want to leave the public school, and this is a way to show the schools how to do what’s already in the law.”

The bill also requires local school districts to set up standards for approving certain religious programs for students to receive credit. If programs meet the standards, the districts would be compelled to approve them for credit, but the district also cannot bar a program if it does not meet those standards; in that case, a student could attend the program but not receive credit.

Despite the fact that Oklahoma statute already provides the right for religious release time, as is the case in more than half of the states after the 1952 U.S. Supreme Court in Zorach v. Clauson found the programs did not run afoul of the First Amendment’s religion clauses, groups that claim religious release time violates the Establishment Clause have already sued Oklahoma schools.

Maryetta Public Schools in Adair County, Oklahoma, attempted allowing Christian Bible study during school hours but was quickly sued by the American Humanist Association. Last year, after Oklahoma approved the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school, the state was sued by a coalition of groups, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Education Law Center.

Joel Penton, founder and CEO of LifeWise Academy, a national organization that provides Bible education to public school students during release time hours, told the Washington Examiner, “Really no matter what your view of the separation of church and state, you should be supportive of this type of program because it is so clearly separate from public schools.”

“Kids are physically separated from state building, it’s done separate from state dollars, and it’s done without any state compulsion: Every single student needs parental permission,” Penton, whose organization operates in 500 schools and over 20 states, continued. “I think the Freedom From Religion Foundation should celebrate something that is such a clear manifestation of the separation of church and state.”

Impending lawsuits are a large part of the reason Staires says the new law needs to be passed.

“Whether there are any communities that want to do this or not, the statute needs clarity. Whether there’s a ton of people that want to do it, or zero people that want to do it, we just need clarity on how to do it,” he said. “There may be a bunch of communities that want to do it, but they’re afraid to do it so they’re not saying anything. Or, on the other side, there could be schools that are avoiding it and kind of pushing it away because they don’t know how to do it. And the next thing you know, they could actually be squashing somebody’s First Amendment rights.”

Penton said he has heard from at least 68 Oklahoma school districts that want to start implementing a release time program but are not sure how to do it without being in the crosshairs of anti-religious groups.

“There’s a lot of families that the Bible is really important to them and as we can see, there’s many families that choose to send their kids to private, religious school so that they can have religious education,” Penton said. “But that’s not necessarily feasible for everybody and so there’s a lot of families that want to implement it. And that’s what they’re hoping to achieve, to pass along these values to their students.”

“We believe this bill is important because it will give the ultimate choice to parents as to whether or not their children participate,” he continued. “Without this bill in place, there’s confusion, and at the end of the day, schools can deny families access to a program like LifeWise, but with this bill in place, the ultimate choice will be in the hands of parents, which we believe is the right place.”

Staires said the media narrative around the bill has missed the point of the it, with much of the coverage focusing on the separation of church and state. But the Oklahoma Republican said that question has already been answered by the Supreme Court and Oklahoma law for years.

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Despite the overwhelming support in the state Senate, the public misunderstandings about the bill, in addition to it being an election year an the end of the legislative session, could complicate the House’s ability to bring it to the floor for final approval.

However, Staires said he is “100% positive” that if the bill made it to the floor, it would pass, and he is also “100% positive” that Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK) would sign it into law.