By Nicole Bowman-Layton

EDENTON — LifeWise Academy is scheduled to begin taking participating White Oak Elementary students off campus for weekly religious instruction Oct. 1, but questions about how the program will affect children who remain at school surfaced during the Edenton-Chowan Board of Education meeting.

The program, which will initially serve participating kindergarten through second-graders, had been scheduled to begin Sept. 24. Local LifeWise program director Michele Lewis told the board the start was pushed back a week to allow additional volunteers to complete required training.

For those folks who’ve seen this photo before, yes, it is a file photo of Lewis talking to the Board of Education about LifeWise Academy.

Lewis answered questions about transportation, background checks, insurance, student safety and the Bible-based curriculum students will receive.

“Many concern things that I believe parents and our community should feel very comfortable asking about: student safety, transportation, background checks, enrollment, communication and the care of our children,” Lewis said. “Those are responsibilities that we take very seriously.”

LifeWise operates under North Carolina’s release-time religious instruction law, which allows public school students, with parental permission, to leave campus during the school day for religious instruction.

Lewis stressed that LifeWise is a private organization, independently operated and funded outside the school system.

“Some parents will choose LifeWise for their children, and others will not,” she said. “We respect both decisions, and my hope is that same respect will be extended to the families who have chosen to participate.”

Students to leave during cultural arts

White Oak Principal Micah Lynch explained how the program will fit into the school day.

LifeWise will operate on Thursdays during the school’s cultural arts schedule, which includes STEM, music and physical education. Students participating in LifeWise will not miss core academic subjects, Lynch said, and all K-2 students will still attend each cultural arts class at least once per week.

Parents enroll directly through LifeWise. The organization will provide the school with a list of enrolled students, but the school will not release a child until it has also received a signed release-time waiver from the parent.

Children who do not participate will remain at White Oak and continue following the school’s regular cultural arts schedule.

The district also intends to maintain a line between its own communication and LifeWise’s. School officials will answer questions about the district’s release-time waiver and policy, while questions about the LifeWise program itself will be directed to the organization.

Superintendent Tammi Ward said the district previously sent families an interest letter informing them that LifeWise was available and whom to contact, but ongoing program communication will come from LifeWise.

“Daily communication, quarterly newsletters, anything like that, we will not be doing that,” Ward said. “LifeWise will be doing that.”

Parent asks about children who stay behind

That distinction, however, led to questions later in the meeting about how much information will be available to parents whose children are not participating.

During public comment, one White Oak parent told the board she was concerned about transparency and had heard little discussion about what LifeWise will mean for children who remain at school.

“I want to know how this is going to look — enrollment numbers, how much of my daughter’s class is going to be bussed away during PE time, whether she gets to have, you know, teams in PE,” she said. “Is that going to be possible?”

She said statewide requirements, national statistics and information available from LifeWise do not answer her questions about what will happen locally at White Oak.

“It’s my job, as a parent, to know these questions, know what questions my daughter is going to come back home with to ask, so I can thoughtfully come up with respectful answers,” she said.

Her concern extended beyond scheduling to how children may experience seeing some of their classmates leave school for an activity in which they do not participate.

“My child doesn’t deserve to be caught in crossfire,” she said. “I don’t want to have to ask her every day, ‘How is this going? You know, are your friends going off to another class and you’re not included? How’s that making her feel?’ I don’t think that’s her job to answer those questions. I think that’s my job.”

She asked the district for “a little more respect for those choosing not to participate,” saying the information presented earlier in the meeting had not addressed those concerns.

Board returns to parent’s concerns

Board members did not respond during public comment, in accordance with the board’s rules, but returned to the parent’s concerns near the end of the meeting.

Board Vice Chair Sheila Evans specifically raised the parent’s question about how many students would leave White Oak classrooms each week.

“I hear her,” Evans said. “I don’t have an answer, but she has a question, and we try to answer all the other questions that people come to us with.”

Evans suggested the district find a way to address the parent’s question without becoming overly involved in LifeWise and also questioned whether participation numbers could eventually be included in information provided to the board.

Ward said she understood the concern but questioned whether the district should disclose how many children participate, comparing it to releasing information about how many children choose not to participate.

“I think we need to be very careful giving people numbers,” Ward said.

At the same time, she said the parent’s comments warranted a response.

“I felt like, listening to her concern, the best thing for me to do, first of all, is call her and talk to her,” Ward said. “I tried to write down the way she expressed it. I’ve got to have a clear understanding.”

Board attorney Hack High then cautioned members that the district must maintain legal distance from LifeWise because it is an outside religious program.

“It’s a very fine line that we need to walk legally and constitutionally,” High said. “It’s not our program, and in order to make sure it’s not our program, our hands need to be off of it as much as possible.”

He later added, “I caution y’all, as it relates to this program, that our fingerprints are not on the program, because it’s not our program, and that’s the way it has to be in order for it to be constitutional.”

Board member Sherronne Battle said the district should still make an effort to acknowledge questions raised by members of the public, even when it cannot provide the answer they seek.

“People want to hear that you hear and understand,” she said. “You don’t want people to think that they’re wasting their time by coming before us and speaking.”

Ward said she generally follows up when a public commenter leaves the board with a specific, unanswered question.

Safety and transportation discussed

Much of the earlier LifeWise presentation focused on what will happen once participating students leave school.

Lewis said students will be checked against an authorized roster before departure, with attendance taken again at the LifeWise location and before students return to school. An authorized driver and screened adult volunteer will accompany students during transportation.

LifeWise employees and volunteers are required to undergo background screenings, Lewis said, and elementary classes will have a teacher and at least two approved volunteers.

Transportation prompted several questions from board members, particularly over the initial use of a van rather than a school bus.

Board member Ricky Browder urged LifeWise to move quickly on acquiring a bus.

“I strongly encourage you to expedite getting a school bus to transport our students to an off-campus site for a parent-voluntary instruction period,” Browder said.

Lewis said LifeWise’s board has already approved the purchase and funding is available.

“We have already identified the bus,” she said. “We have the funding. My board, my executive board at LifeWise, has already approved the purchase.”

Lewis did not publicly identify the location where students will receive instruction, saying participating parents and school administrators have been informed but she has received hostile emails and does not want protests or disruptions around children.

“My concern is the safety of children,” Lewis said. “I don’t want protesters scaring children.”

She said she has also contacted local law enforcement about security.

Board stresses it approved policy, not LifeWise

The distinction between the district’s release-time policy and LifeWise itself surfaced repeatedly during the meeting.

Board member Battle emphasized during the transportation discussion that the board’s action was not an endorsement of the organization.

“Our job is to approve a policy 4210,” Battle said. “We approve the policy for the parents to make a choice if they chose to do so, not to support LifeWise or any other group that may come in and want to do it.”

The issue arose again when the board reviewed minutes from its previous meeting. A board member noticed the draft minutes said a speaker had thanked the board for approving LifeWise Academy.

“The board did not approve LifeWise Academy,” Battle said. “We approved release time for religious instruction.”

The board agreed to correct the record while preserving what the speaker had actually said.

The district also approved a technical amendment to Policy 4210 during the meeting, changing the allowable release time from five hours to four hours to conform with new state legislation.

For now, Lewis said LifeWise plans to concentrate on the White Oak program rather than immediately expand to other grades or schools.

“We’re going to go through this year and just really make sure that this program is solid,” she said. “If there’s something that needs to be changed, adjusted, we’ve got this year to do that.”

Parents can enroll or withdraw their children from LifeWise during the year.

Lewis said the organization understands that not every family will make the same choice.

“We understand that not every family in Edenton-Chowan County will choose religious instruction for their child, and we fully respect that decision,” she said.