It’s Not Really About the Bibles

Following their lawsuit against the Everett School District, LifeWise and their program directors in Everett have rallied behind the cry that the school district is “forcing kids to hide their Bibles.” They have even appeared on a national rightwing TV show to spread this message, very likely because they know it will work at garnering sympathy for their cause. As a result, people from out of state are already attacking the district in online forums. But here’s the thing: the message that LifeWise is promoting is just not true. By law, school districts must allow students to read religious material when they are allowed to read other types of literature, and there has been ZERO evidence to reflect that any student at Emerson Elementary has been denied that access. 

LifeWise argues that the district’s “Bibles-in-backpacks policy" has interfered with parents’ rights to direct the religious education of their children. There is a lot to say about this complaint, but it is sufficient to point out that they have produced no evidence to support this assertion. The district guidelines simply state that LifeWise program materials must be “sealed in an envelope and placed directly into the student’s backpack immediately upon their return to school.” If a student has free time or silent reading time after a LifeWise session and asks to retrieve their LifeWise Bible to independently study, the teacher must allow it. If a student brings their Bible (or any other religious text) from home and chooses to read it independently at an appropriate time -- every day of the week -- there is nothing barring them from doing so.

The issue at hand is not that students are “forced to conceal their Bibles,” but rather that when students return to campus from midday activities, they must help maintain a focused learning environment by keeping any materials they bring with them in their backpacks. For example, when a student returns from a dentist appointment in the middle of the day with a fancy new toothbrush or when another gets a toy prize at an off-campus therapy appointment, they leave those items in their backpacks. Similarly, a teacher would very reasonably ask their newest excited reader to put away a Dog Man book if the child were trying to read it during a math lesson. These are not attacks on dental hygiene or plastic toys or graphic literature; they are routine classroom expectations, with the goal of minimizing disruption and ensuring focus on the learning objectives of the moment. And while it is true that these items are not required to be sealed in an envelope, these are not the products of a group’s off-campus excursion with a third party entity. To be clear, LifeWise is the ONLY organization removing children from school during the day, and should another organization be permitted to do the same, the same rules apply.

While LifeWise leans into the false narrative that the Everett School District is “forcing kids to hide their Bibles,” we know the truth -- that this is misinformation designed to compel people to side with LifeWise in their quest to upend secular public education.