A Washington state school district will pay out $275,000 after it forced Christian students to conceal their faith and made it harder for them to receive voluntary religious instruction.
The case centers on LifeWise Academy, an organization that provides religious instruction to public school students with their parents' consent.
From Fox News:
A Washington state school district has agreed to publicly apologize, undergo religious liberty training and pay $275,000 in attorney's fees after a lawsuit challenged policies that required elementary school students to keep Bibles concealed in sealed envelopes, according to a Christian education organization whose CEO says children felt pressured to hide their faith.
Joel Penton, founder and CEO of LifeWise Academy, told Fox News Digital in an interview Thursday that parents described the emotional toll of the Everett School District's restrictions, which also included requiring families to submit permission slips every week for their children to attend voluntary, off-campus Bible instruction.
"I also heard from parents that their children felt like they were being told they had to hide their faith when they were told they had to put their Bibles and things in envelopes as though it was something to be ashamed of, and I know that was very hurtful as well," Penton said.
LifeWise Academy, which provides privately funded Bible instruction to public school students during the school day with parental permission, filed suit after the Everett School District imposed restrictions that the organization argued unfairly targeted its program.
Penton said LifeWise had operated in Everett for several years, serving dozens of students and families, before the school board changed its policies.
"Then the school board changed some of their policies in some ways that were pretty transparently discriminatory and infringed on the religious liberty of our program there," Penton said. "And some of those policy changes included requiring parents, instead of simply signing a permission slip one time for the entire semester, the entire year, they were requiring them to hand-bring in a permission slip each and every week, which was quite onerous."
Penton said they were told they were not allowed to participate at some of the community fairs, which he claimed other student organizations were able to participate in.
A win for religious liberty: Washington’s Everett Public Schools has agreed to pay $275,000 in legal fees, change its policies and apologize to families participating in LifeWise’s off-site Bible instruction during school hours. The district restricted LifeWise’s ability to advertise alongside secular programs and created obstacles for students seeking to participate. One board member called LifeWise supporters “homophobic bullies” seeking “an authoritarian theocracy” and stated, “I do in fact hold animus” against the group. The settlement requires equal treatment for LifeWise alongside secular groups. https://t.co/Qb5mY88kAy
— Montana Family Foundation (@MontanaFamilies) October 15, 2026
This case is similar to others that came up in school districts across the nation. In Wisconsin’s Arrowhead Union High School District, administrators barred a graduating senior from including Proverbs 3:6 in a personal graduation slideshow message because it was a religious text. They also rejected a substitute message in which the student thanked God.
The district later paid $12,500 and apologized after the threat of a lawsuit.
In Killeen, the school district came under fire after a school principal confiscated Bible verse slips that a fifth-grade special-needs student had been sharing with classmates. After receiving a letter from the American Center for Law and Justice, the district reversed course and affirmed that students could distribute religious materials as long as they did not interfere with class.
