Revere Local Schools’ Board of Education (BOE) instituted a policy on students leaving school for religious instruction that indicates how long and when students can leave.
Towards the end of Revere’s 2023-2024 school year and at the beginning of its 2024-2025 school year, the idea of students leaving school for religious instruction has been a popular topic at the district’s board meetings. The BOE adopted a policy back in March of 2024 based on the basic Ohio policy and has recently revised it.
Revere board member Kasha Brackett gave a brief explanation of what religious organizations want to do within public school districts.
“[Students] would leave. They would be picked up from the organization at the school building and brought back by the organization to the school building,” Brackett said.
The state of Ohio has its policy on students leaving for religious instruction. Brackett explained that the policy has “basic legalities that you are/are not allowed to do,” and that students are not allowed to miss any core classes.
“No matter what school you are, you can’t allow somebody to skip math class [for example],” Brackett said.
Courtney Stein, vice president of the BOE, explained a few more rules that go along with Ohio’s policy.
“It has to be off school grounds. It has to be not using any taxpayer funding in any way. So it doesn’t use [our] staff, it doesn’t use [our] buildings, it doesn’t use our transportation. It’s off school grounds with their own transportation,” Stein said.
Revere’s BOE was then able to make their own policy and decided that instead of only core classes being required, all graded classes would be required for its students to attend. This means that the only time a religious organization would be able to take a student out of school would be during a recess, lunch or study hall. The board’s policy also states that students can only be taken out of school one day a week. Superintendent Dan White listed a number of other rules the policy states.
“[They need an] MOU [memorandum of understanding], background check and . . . [in addition] we’ll ensure that students are not missing any [ungraded] library and STEM classes,” White said.
BOE president Keith Malick explained the relationship between the BOE and Superintendent White when it comes to policies within the district.
“A board’s role is really policy making. We oversee the policies of the districts. We create, amend, rescind whatever it may be as it relates to the policies. It’s up to Mr. White and his administration to implement the policy,” Malick said.
Currently, no religious organization has reached out to White. Brackett explained this in the means of one popular religious organization.
“Right now there is no organization that has fulfilled the needs of the policy. So I know Lifewise is the big one people are hearing about, but Lifewise does not have everything in place that they would need in order to abide by our policy to allow students out. . . . As of November 7, . . . as a board member I have not been made aware if they have started discussions on an MOU with our superintendent,” Brackett said.
White explained that, currently, it is hard for him to tell if an organization will soon come forward with all of the needed information to begin the process.
“There’s been no communication, and it‘s hard to even speculate because I think any organization would have to figure out the policy for Revere, what they have to do to make that work. And so it’s hard to speculate if anybody has started doing that, started it [and] decided they can’t make it, decided they’re done,” White said.
Although there is no organization currently taking students out of school, members of the Revere community have still made their opinions known. Brackett explained what she had seen at the board meetings.
“At the board meetings, we have had a huge increase of Revere District residents coming to be present at the meetings and observe what’s happening as well as speaking up. The vast majority of those people have been in opposition, citing many different concerns that they have from information that they have been learning about generally Lifewise but also just release time and religious instruction being allowed during the school day as well. So they kind of have two concerns. There has been a smaller but present [group]. There has been the presence of a few people that have spoke for wanting this as well as a signed petition prior to the former superintendent even bringing it to the board,” Brackett said.
Malick explained that, from what he has seen, most of the people opposing leaving school for religious instruction have come to the board meetings while the people for it have had more private conversations with him.
“At the board, we’ve seen reaction from a group that is against Lifewise. . . . I’ve had a reaction from parents that are on the opposite side. Most of that has been either because I’ve seen them out, they’ve made communication about it or I’ve talked to them on phone, but they have not come out publicly to express their opinion,” Malick said.
Currently no religious organization has had the means necessary to take Revere students out of school, although White says it is hard to tell if there are some with plans to do so. The next Revere BOE meeting will be on December 10 in the Revere High School library.
