- Kenton County Schools voted against a proposal for Biblical instruction this week
- Board members and the superintendent were worried the proposal would be overly disruptive to the school day
- Lifewise Academy, the company that made the proposal, uses curriculum materials produced by the Southern Baptist Convention
The Kenton County Schools Board of Education unanimously voted down a proposal from Ohio-based Biblical instruction nonprofit Lifewise Academy Monday night.
Lifewise had proposed offering voluntary instruction on Biblical teachings for interested students during the school day, a move recently made legal with the passage of Kentucky Senate Bill 19.
Superintendent Henry Webb believed the logistics and requirements set down in the new law, which allows boards to accept or decline “moral instruction,” as it characterizes it, as they like, would cause “inevitable disruptions of scheduled core curriculum instruction for students” and recommended against the proposal.
The law stipulates that interested students can receive moral instruction on a voluntary basis for one hour, once a week, in a way that does not incur expense on the district itself.
By law, students who do not take part in the program must take non-credit-bearing courses, such as gym, music, art or other coursework outside of the mandated curriculum. Lifewise Academy’s proposal included transportation of interested students off-site for the instruction.
Neither the board members nor Webb had anything to say about the idea of moral instruction or Biblical teaching during the school day at the meeting. Their worries were entirely focused on the burden it would place on district operations.
The superintendent’s official recommendation points out that “if the application is approved, and even a single student participates in the moral instruction, the regular, credit-bearing academic instruction for all remaining students in that school must cease during that time block.”
Board Member Erin McConnell worried about transportation and everything else that would be involved to carry out the proposal, “that disruption’s not just an hour, it’s half a day.”
“One hour is all that’s allotted,” said Webb. “They cannot go above one hour. That includes transportation.”
The proposal submitted to the district contains little information about the content of the instruction, but marketing materials on Lifewise Academy’s website indicate that it’s dedicated to bringing instruction on the Bible into public schools “during school hours, during school hours…” Representatives from Lifewise did not attend the meeting.
Based out of Hilliard, Ohio, the company is a nonprofit headed up by Joel Penton, a former defensive tackle for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Tax filings indicate the company had about $25 million in assets last year.
The company’s website also indicates the curriculum is based on materials from the Gospel Project, a subsidiary of Lifeway, a media distribution company associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, one of the largest evangelical denominations in the country.
Senate Bill 19 originally appeared before the Kentucky General Assembly as a bill that would mandate a moment of silence at the start of the school day.
The moral instruction piece was originally its own bill in the form of House Bill 607, but that bill never made it out of committee. Moral instruction was later grafted onto Senate Bill 19 as an amendment. The bill passed out of the General Assembly in mid-March. Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the bill on March 26, and then the General Assembly overrode his veto the next day.