Respect Public Schools - Washington

10/16/2026

Unfortunately, the Everett School District has caved to the LifeWise lawsuit and settled. Clearly there is more nuance to what all has been going on behind the scenes, but what is very clear is this:

If you are a school district and you let LifeWise Academy into your school without previously creating a strong safety policy and procedure around releasing children in the middle of the day to third party organizations, YOU ARE OPENING YOUR DISTRICT UP TO A LAWSUIT JUST LIKE THIS.

$275,000 just came out of the Everett School District budget (insurance did not cover this) and Christian nationalists are delighted because their goal is to undermine public education at all costs.

Washington laws do not require schools to allow this program to operate. So LifeWise is trying to go through the back door and utilize every legal loophole they can find.

Just like office staff don't let random strangers in the back door of the school without them first going through the office and appropriate security protocol, your schools and districts should not be having conversations with third party organizations before shoring up their policies and procedures.

LifeWise Academy representatives are going to take this settlement and try and use it to pretend that their religious agenda trumps student safety and the very nature of secular public education.

Here's the Herald article so you can read for yourself:

The district did not admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement. It will pay a total of $275,000 to the off-campus Bible program.

08/27/2026

8 PM PST TONIGHT CBS Texas begins airing its three-part investigative story into LifeWise Academy.

🚨 HOW TO WATCH — INCLUDING FROM OUTSIDE TEXAS

📺 Part One: 10 PM Central / 11 PM Eastern

👉 Go to CBSNews.com, select Live, and look for CBS News Texas.

👉 Or open the CBS News app, go to Live Now, and select CBS News Texas.

The CBS News app is available on Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, iPhone/iPad, Android, Xbox and PlayStation.

Parts two and three air Thursday and Friday.

Secular Education Association will be posting reports when CBS makes them available.

We’ve been sitting on this one for a little while.

Starting tomorrow, CBS Texas is airing a three-part series on LifeWise Academy — Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 10 PM.

SEA co-founder Zach Parrish was interviewed for the series and will be featured in parts two and three.

Over the course of their reporting, we provided extensive information and documentation — including material related to LifeWise’s finances, growth, structure, and operations.

We have not seen the finished reports yet, so we are not going to speculate about what made the final cut. But this is exactly why we have refused to stop digging.

LifeWise has expanded rapidly while parents, educators, and communities have been told over and over that there is nothing to worry about.

We disagreed. 🙂‍↔️

So we documented it.
We followed the money.
We tracked the legislation.
We collected the firsthand accounts.
We connected the people and organizations helping this model spread.

And now that work is reaching a much larger — and much-needed — audience.

We’ll share each report as soon as it is available. Starting tomorrow.

Wednesday. Thursday. Friday.
10 PM CENTRAL CBS Texas.

Stay tuned.

08/13/2026

Check out this thorough presentation on LifeWise Academy and Released Time for Religious Instruction as it pertains to Washington State - thanks again to Snohomish County Indivisible for hosting this info session at the July meeting!

Jenn from Respect Public Schools WA sharing about Lifewise in Washi...

08/04/2026

LifeWise Academy exposing their own lies yet again.

LifeWise uses their interest lists to "prove" to school districts there's local community support and desire for a program in the district. But founder Joel Penton admits it's all a lie. "Anyone with a pulse" can sign and the numbers of signatures needed are arbitrary and meaningless.

An organization, which claims to be centered on "character" education is amazingly comfortable with lying and misleading the public, demands access to elementary school children. But what else are they lying about?

06/27/2026

Exciting meetup opportunity: We'll have a table at Pride in the Park in Everett this Sunday with rocks to paint! It may be rainy but we have a tent. Bring a chair and come hang!

6th Annual Pride in the Park at Forest Park here in Everett!

If you're not already in our group, join us at Snoco Pride, where you can post about Pride related events in and around greater Snohomish County.

05/25/2026

This Memorial Day, we remember the people who gave their lives for this country.

Not for one religion.
Not for one political party.
Not for one version of America.

They served a nation built on the promise of liberty- including the freedom to believe, the freedom not to believe, and the freedom to raise our children without the government choosing a religious side.

Public schools are one of the places where that promise is supposed to be REAL.

They belong to Christian families.
Jewish families.
Muslim families.
Hindu families.
Atheist families.
Agnostic families.
Families still figuring it out.
Families who simply want their children to learn in peace.

Religious freedom requires neutral schools.

When public schools are pressured to coordinate, accommodate, promote, or normalize religious instruction during the school day, that neutrality is put at risk.

And when neutrality falls, the students who do not belong to the favored faith tradition are the first to feel it.

This Memorial Day, we honor sacrifice by defending the freedoms those sacrifices were meant to protect.

Public schools belong to everyone.

Secular Education Association

05/12/2026

TIME SENSITIVE ADVOCACY OPPORTUNITY! Call or email by midday Wednesday May 13.

KUOW SoundSide is interviewing Seattle Public Schools superintendent Ben Shuldiner this Thursday, May 14.

Submit your questions via voicemail: You might hear your call on-air: 206-221-3213 Or share your thoughts directly with the team at [email protected].

Let's make sure they get a flood of RTRI questions!! (if they don't have time to address them on Thursday, it may raise the stakes for them to do a separate piece on RTRI in Washington)

Possible questions:
Do you have concerns about Release Time for Religious Instruction in Seattle?

How does Seattle plan to respond to organizations such as LifeWise Academy who want to disrupt public schools by taking students off property in the middle of the school day for religious instruction?

What measures is Seattle Public Schools taking to ensure Christian Nationalist groups don't get a foothold in our public schools?

Is Superintendent Shuldiner aware that school districts are not required to permit RTRI programs to remove children during the school day?

04/27/2026

🎉 Exciting news! Washington State OSPI has updated their website to more accurately reflect guidance about religion in schools.

🫣 Spoiler alert: schools can say NO to school-day disruptions. For districts who are fearful of saying no, we've got you covered with a model policy to protect student safety, privacy, and the school.

🗣️ Schools across the state are having conversations about how to clarify local policy to support all students and all families in a neutral way that still allows families to provide religious instruction to their children if they wish. Here's a model policy to share with your superintendents, school boards, and members of WSSDA (Washington State School Directors' Association).

(This post was not written by AI. We just like using emojis sometimes🤷🏽).

Here's a shareable Released Time for Religious Instruction Policy to send to your school districts.

03/31/2026

We support ALL children and ALL families.

That includes our trans community. 🏳️‍⚧️

You are loved and valued.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1FpS6pJ2uF/

Every child belongs in public school. That includes trans students.

On Trans Day of Visibility, we want to say this clearly and without apology:

Trans students deserve to feel safe, seen, respected, and included at school.
They deserve classrooms where they can learn without fear.
They deserve adults who protect their dignity.
They deserve peers and communities that do not treat their existence like a debate.

Public schools are for every child. Not just the children who fit someone else’s religious or political worldview. Every child.

At the Secular Education Association, we believe public schools should be grounded in dignity, inclusion, and equal belonging for all students. That means standing up for the rights, safety, and humanity of trans kids.

Today, and every day, we see you.
You belong here.
And we will keep saying it.

03/12/2026

LifeWise's Washington state leader went on a public broadcast and discussed how they misplaced a student that they identify as a "hellion." How many programs are allowed to misplace children and publicly call them derogatory names without reproach?

She confirms that LifeWise believes parents have abandoned their children to the public school system.

LifeWise does not have respect for the public school system.

Their goal is to save these poor children from their parents' negligence (that's what I hear when you say that the kids have been abandoned - is there another definition of child abandonment that does not directly imply negligence?)

Here's the video clip from Secular Education Association. You can watch it yourself and make your own determination:

This is how LifeWise talks about your public schools and your kids.In this recorded conversation, a Washington State LifeWise representative and a supporter ...