By Miles Layton

EDENTON — Kindergartners through second graders at White Oak Elementary will have the option to step off campus once a week this fall for Bible lessons, as LifeWise Academy prepares to launch its first Edenton-Chowan chapter Sept. 24 under a released-time policy the school board adopted last November.

The bigger story, though, may be in Raleigh. Senate Bill 257, signed into law July 7, wrote released-time religious instruction into North Carolina statute for the first time, on pages 170-172 of the bill. Starting with the 2026-27 school year, the law moves the state from a “may” to a “shall” standard: any school board in the state must offer released-time instruction if a request meets the legal requirements, whether or not the board wants to.

Those requirements track the framework the U.S. Supreme Court laid out in its 1952 ruling in Zorach v. Clauson: instruction has to be privately funded, held off school property, and cleared in writing by a parent. The new law adds a cap of four hours a week and bars the classes from cutting into core curriculum time. The Edenton-Chowan LifeWise program is one hour a week and won’t touch core instruction.

“Edenton-Chowan Public Schools value our school, home, and community partnerships. Under Policy 4210 and Senate Bill 257, our district accommodates eligible released-time requests—such as the off-campus religious instruction offered by LifeWise Academy—providing families with parental choice while ensuring core instruction remains uninterrupted,” Superintendent Tammi Ward said.  

Featured photo comes from the Edenton-Chowan Board of Education meeting, held Aug. 18. See our related story — click here.

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How the program will work

LifeWise is hiring two teachers and a paid bus driver for the Edenton-Chowan chapter; the openings are posted on the organization’s website, and enrollment is open now at the program’s local page on lifewise.org.

District Policy 4210 requires a parent or guardian to sign off in writing before a student can take part. Students can be excused one to five hours a week, but only from elective periods — not from core subjects or classes tied to state testing. Getting kids to and from lessons is not the school system’s job; that falls to LifeWise, the parent, or the student. LifeWise carries the liability while students are in its care, and the district isn’t responsible for the curriculum or for anything that happens in transit.

Any student information shared with LifeWise requires written parental consent, with exceptions for records already covered by public information law. 

Parents got a letter at the end of last school year letting them know the program would start this September and that it would require written permission — the kind of notice, organizers say, that might go home for a scouting troop or a rec league team. No student can attend without a parent’s signature. The letter closed with this language:

“LifeWise Academy is an independent nonprofit program and is not affiliated with or operated by ECPS. Participation is completely voluntary. Teachers, administrators, and employees of Edenton-Chowan Schools do not represent, encourage, discourage, or influence participation in the Edenton-Chowan LifeWise program.”

Opposition turnout has been light, organizers say

Those running the local chapter dispute the idea that there’s an organized opposition movement taking shape.

There was an email circulating through the community — I saw it, read it, same as I do the other emails from this bless your heart agitator, urging folks to speak out against LifeWise at July’s Board of Education meeting.

Organizers say that push drew four people to the July school board meeting, three of whom spoke against the program, in sharp contrast to August’s meeting where the room was packed with LifeWise supporters.

While this trio raised some good questions, organizers pushed back against comparisons of LifeWise to a corporate chain, arguing that the Edenton-Chowan program looks nothing like a franchise on the ground: it’s funded locally and run by local volunteers — church members, coaches, retired teachers, parents, grandparents. The national organization, they say, supplies the back-office pieces — employee handbooks, payroll, curriculum — but the chapter itself only came together after a group of local residents petitioned LifeWise to help them start one.

That email also raised a possible conflict of interest: Board Chairman George Lewis’s wife, Michele Lewis, has been identified as the person leading the local LifeWise chapter. Organizers say Lewis has never brought up LifeWise by name, voted on it specifically, or pushed the board toward it — that the board’s November 2025 vote was on the district’s released-time policy broadly, not on LifeWise. They also say none of the current opponents were at that November meeting, and that the chapter’s current leader didn’t join the program or finish her training until April 2026, months after the policy vote.

What is LifeWise

LifeWise Academy is an Ohio nonprofit founded in 2018 by Joel Penton to provide off-site Bible instruction to public school students during the school day. It describes itself as interdenominational, teaching within the bounds of the Nicene Creed, and it’s best known nationally for the red buses that ferry kids to and from its off-campus classrooms. Rather than running as one centralized program, LifeWise operates through locally affiliated chapters.

The released-time model dates to the Supreme Court’s 1952 Zorach v. Clauson decision, which lets students leave school grounds for religious instruction during the day so long as it’s off-property, privately funded and approved by parents. More than half the states already have released-time laws on the books, and LifeWise says tens of thousands of students attend its classes nationwide each week. Because the framework applies equally to any religion, a district that clears LifeWise can’t turn down a similar request from another faith.

Before the new state law, North Carolina had no requirement that districts allow released time — the Supreme Court permitted it, but nothing forced a district’s hand. Chowan County’s board acted on its own, approving Policy 4210 at its Nov. 4, 2025, meeting, and that local policy is what currently lets LifeWise, or any comparable program, operate in county schools. Ward said the board hasn’t discussed LifeWise by name at an open meeting, aside from Lewis mentioning he’d attended a conference on released-time instruction and offering to share materials with any board member interested.