This news outlet interviewed a Dayton LifeWise regional director as well as LifeWise critics for this story. We also reviewed curriculum, looked at data on LifeWise’s expansion, and evaluated LifeWise’s recent tax filings, which show the nonprofit’s revenues and expenditures doubling year after year.
LifeWise started in northwestern Ohio in 2018. It made a replicable, scalable model for local schools and churches to teach Bible-based classes. Most of the group’s expansion so far has taken place in Ohio, but other states now also have LifeWise programs.
Local schools that have a LifeWise program include Dayton Public Schools, Kettering City Schools, Vandalia-Butler City Schools, Springboro City Schools and Clark-Shawnee Local Schools. Residents in Springfield, Middletown and Hamilton are either collecting signatures or in the process of starting a chapter, according to the LifeWise website.
LifeWise doesn’t post the number of districts it is in on their website, but a third-party computer programmer from northwest Ohio, Keith Comer, of respectpublicschools.com, compiled LifeWise data and found that 267 out of the more than 600 school districts in Ohio currently have an active LifeWise chapter.
Ohio schools could previously control the policy around released time programs, but in 2025 Ohio’s legislature passed House Bill 57, requiring all Ohio districts to allow released time programs to operate within their districts.
Recently, a state law passed allowing high school students to earn up to two units of high school credit for completing a released time course in religious instruction. The law goes into effect Jan. 19.
What qualifies as a high school credit is up to the local board of education, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce said. The class may be substituted for an elective course and can’t replace core subjects like math or English.
Credit: NICK BLIZZARD/STAFF
Credit: NICK BLIZZARD/STAFF
Dayton program
Stephon Watts, Dayton city program director for LifeWise, said while students can attend Bible school on Sundays, some children may be interested in learning more about religion but not have an opportunity to attend church.
“For us, it was like, how do we reach those kids that may not even know that these things are available?” Watts, a DPS graduate, said. “And what does that look like?”
The only current LifeWise course involved with Dayton Public Schools is offered to students at Ruskin Elementary in East Dayton. Watts said they plan to expand to students at E.J. Brown Middle School in West Dayton next year.
The Ruskin program is off-site at a local church. This news outlet is not sharing the specific location for student safety.
During a reporter visit to the site recently, the students brought their lunches and ate while watching a video about the visit of the three kings to Jesus, or the Epiphany. They then played two games that helped the students learn each others’ likes and dislikes.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
Criticism
LifeWise has been criticized because some students are excused from “extra classes” like art or music to attend. The group also lacks transparency on how many students are actually in the programs on their website. Some don’t like that students could be proselytized to at school.
Natalie Hastings, a researcher and organizer for Honesty for Ohio Education, led a working group about religion extremism in Ohio schools.
She said she’d heard reports from parents that LifeWise would offer candy or pizza to students to get them to come to the classes or other children would peer pressure their classmates into coming.
In the beginning of LifeWise spreading, parents didn’t have all the information to know what their board members were voting on, and sometimes school board members had only partial information, she said.
“How (LifeWise) succeeded initially was being totally under the radar,” Hastings said.
Rapid growth
A review of LifeWise’s publicly available tax forms show the organization’s revenue and spending doubling year-over-year in recent years.
From July 2023 to June 2024, LifeWise raised about $33.7 million, tax forms shows. Between July 2022 and June 2023, LifeWise raised about half of that amount, totaling about $13.3 million, the records show. The year before that they reported revenue of $6.5 million.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Spending also nearly doubled in that same time frame. Between July 2022 and June 2023, expenses were about $9.4 million — up from $4.6 million the year before — IRS tax forms show. But between July 2023 and June 2024, the form shows expenses were just over $18 million.
It is not stated in the filings who donated to the organization to see such a big increase.
Curriculum
LifeWise’s curriculum focuses on “Bible-based development,” meaning the lessons are focused on a Bible story and how it relates to the student’s life.
Most of the lessons are meant for elementary school kids, but LifeWise has examples of curriculum for middle and high school students as well.
“We focus on things like key elements of character development,” Watts said, adding these are concepts such as “respect, courage, patience and kindness.”
Watts said he believes children will likely get these lessons at home.
He added, “They need to learn about patience, respect, humility, self-control. Because I just — I believe that a lot of these are core values that are just good across the board.”
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
This news outlet reviewed LifeWise’s available curriculum for elementary, middle and high school students. To access these documents, a journalist requested access to the curriculum through the LifeWise website, which was granted for three days. The full curriculum was not available for review. Agreeing not to distribute the materials was a condition of granting access.
One example from the elementary curriculum was a lesson on Noah and the Ark.
The lesson on patience teaches that God sent a flood to destroy mankind after they stopped believing and God chose only to rescue Noah and his family as they still believed in God. Noah built an ark when there was no water but was saved because God told him to do so.
The curriculum content reviewed by this news outlet found the curriculum discusses the world’s design from a Biblical point of view, with God making the world. The curriculum does not explicitly discuss parents living together outside of marriage or LGBTQ+ people, but Honesty for Ohio Education, a nonprofit that focuses on Ohio’s education system, has found some discussion of these topics in a “Difficult Questions” document.
Honesty for Ohio Education says the document tells students unmarried parents are living in sin, that children should obey God over their own parents, and that LGBTQ+ people are living in sin and angering God.
LifeWise does still use this document, said a spokeswoman for the organization.
“Students who participate in LifeWise are exposed to a variety of worldviews that may raise questions about the Bible’s perspective on cultural issues, as well as matters of faith and practice," said Christine Czernejewski, a spokeswoman for LifeWise. “LifeWise staff are prepared to carefully respond to difficult questions with the goal of having age-appropriate conversation within the scope of our program. LifeWise regularly reviews and updates resources and training materials but the document being referenced may no longer reflect the most current guidance.
She added, “Importantly, LifeWise does not position staff or volunteers as substitutes for parents. Students are consistently encouraged to take questions home and discuss them with their parents or guardians, who are best equipped to address personal or family-specific matters.”
Members of the public can request a review of the curriculum on LifeWise’s website.
Time and recruitment
One of the most common criticisms of LifeWise from members of the public is the tactics that LifeWise allegedly uses to get students to come to the class.
Besides allegedly peer-pressuring students, some LifeWise classes are offered during school hours. Comer found participation increased by 119% when students missed class.
Watts says that the Dayton branch does not use these tactics. LifeWise is held in Dayton during recess or lunch only, he said.
“This is all parent permission,” he said. “So the parents want them there, and the students want to be there.”
Comer said some of his criticisms of LifeWise include the lack of transparency and a recent state law change that allows students to miss school time to attend released time instruction.
Under state law, elementary and middle school students can’t miss more than two periods in total per week unless the school board creates a policy otherwise. Comer said he feels that’s hypocritical given how focused the state has been on increasing test scores and not missing school.
“It doesn’t seem like the state government has any issue with kids missing school to go to LifeWise,” Comer said.
Future of LifeWise
Hastings noted that LifeWise recently announced high school curriculum. Previously, most of the instruction was held at an elementary or middle school level.
Watts said he believes that LifeWise will continue to expand.
“I think it will definitely continue to grow only because of the style of how it is laid out,” Watts said. “I think that’s why it’s expanding so fast as well.”
He said when he first heard about the program, he was skeptical. But learning more about the program made him believe that it would help local kids, he said.
Watts said LifeWise is not a forced program and anyone can join.
“It doesn’t exclude anyone,” he said.
Watts said LifeWise will not immediately expand into all of the Dayton schools due to staffing issues. All of the LifeWise volunteers and employees are background checked, he said, and he is picky about the volunteers who work with kids to make sure that they actually like kids.
“Everyone is background checked,” he said. “But then even after that, for me, I want people around who actually have a passion for kids.”
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