Most of the written testimony submitted to the Ohio Legislature was in opposition to the bill. One opponent of the idea was the Ohio School Counselor Association, which provided testimony against the bill on three separate occasions. Both teachers’ unions opposed the bill, as did several school boards, including the Toledo and Columbus public school boards.
Heather Fairs of the Ohio School Counselor Association said one of the first questions counselors ask when a student comes into a school counselor is if a parent is aware of whatever they’re discussing. If the parents aren’t, the counselor works with the student to get the tools they need to have the conversation.
Fairs said parents can already opt out of school counselor sessions, argued the disclosure requirements are too broad and said the bill could potentially harm students who are being abused by their parents.
“We have heard very sad stories from our children about how they are being used by their parents to sell drugs or being sex trafficked,” she said. “Without the trust students have in schools, these children will not have a place to report the horrible things that happened to them. Our fear is this bill will be detrimental to children in these situations.”
But several proponents of the bill said it was important for parents to be able to raise their children according to their own beliefs.
“Activist teachers are having conversations with students they are not qualified to have nor should they be having on moral grounds,” said Lisa Chaffee, director of Ohio Parents Rights In Education. “The topics of sex and sexual identity are between children and parents.”
Release time
A later add-on to the bill included a requirement that Ohio’s public schools adopt a policy to allow students to leave class in the middle of the day to attend third-party religious instruction, a concept that has been legal in Ohio but not mandatory for local schools to participate in.
Since 2019, a newer organization called LifeWise has begun to advocate released time classes in local school districts across Ohio.
Under Ohio law, released time for religious instruction is permitted if the public school is not funding any of the religious practices and no public school personnel are providing the religious instruction. The student cannot miss any core classes, and by law, the religious instruction is limited to one hour per week.
In the last two years, LifeWise has exploded in popularity. LifeWise says the program is in 591 schools across 29 states. The Dayton Daily News found in February that of the 57 school districts in Montgomery, Miami, Greene, Warren, Clark and Butler counties, LifeWise Academy works with 12, including Clark-Shawnee, Northridge, Brookville, Tipp City, Piqua, Bethel Local, Vandalia and Springboro. Most of those districts say the program is offered to elementary school students.
Troy Schools declined to allow LifeWise when it was approached, but Troy was not the most controversial district. The Columbus Dispatch reported that Worthington, a Columbus suburb, rescinded their policy of allowing release of public school students to religious programs like LifeWise, following Westerville schools rescinding their policy in October.
House Bill 8 was approved 24-to-7 in the Senate, with one Republican objector, and 57 to 31 in the House mostly along party lines with state Rep. Andrea White, R-Kettering, being one of the few Republican opponents.
