BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Despite a 2019 law allowing students to leave campus for religious instruction, many Alabama school districts lack policies permitting it. Rep. Susan DuBose, R-Hoover, wants to change that.
Her House Bill 342, would require school boards to adopt policies allowing religious release time, an option she says parents want but schools too often reject.
“Parents are being told, ‘We don’t have a policy,’” DuBose told the House Education Policy Committee recently. “And the conversation ends there.”
Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, is sponsoring a companion Senate Bill 229.
Both bills build on the Alabama Released Time Credit Act of 2019, which allowed – but did not require – school districts to develop policies permitting students to attend religious classes off campus during school hours. The law also said schools could give elective credit if coursework met certain requirements.
But some questioned the need and motivation for the bill.
Alabama Association of School Boards President-elect Scott Suttle told lawmakers that while the 2019 law already allows religious release time, forcing all school districts to adopt it undermines local decision-making.
“School boards are not opposed to religious release time,” Suttle said. “We’re simply opposed to yet another governmental overreach that takes away the community’s opportunity for choice and their voice. The 2019 law that is already on the books has been working for school boards and their families quite well.”
Since the law passed, only about a dozen of Alabama’s more than 140 school districts have adopted policies, DuBose said. Citing a survey with 4,000 signatures of parents interested in religious instruction release time for their children, she argued there is “strong demand” for schools to provide the option.
Alabama Daily News has not independently verified the survey DuBose cited.
The bill has support in high places. Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, who in January 2024 sent a letter urging superintendents to consider partnering with LifeWise Academy – an Ohio-based organization that provides school-time religious instruction – recently voiced support for DuBose’s bill on social media.
“Alabama is the most Christian state in the nation, and we embrace religious freedom and parental choice in our schools,” Ainsworth wrote Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter. “HB342 gives students the option of taking off-campus Bible study during school hours and requires local boards to make it available. I support its passage 100%.”
Initially, DuBose’s bill mandated that school boards not only create a policy but also be required to give elective credit if coursework met requirements. After a public hearing in early March, she removed the credit requirement, a concession to concerns raised by lawmakers.
Rep. Alan Baker, R-Brewton, said school officials aren’t necessarily opposed to religious instruction but worry about losing academic time.
“There are some schools that have chosen not to do this, and not necessarily because they do not value religious instruction,” Baker said. “It’s because they value instructional time.”
Baker pointed out that schools already juggle numerous instructional mandates, from Alabama Literacy Act requirements to anti-bullying and character education. He also questioned why students couldn’t receive religious instruction outside of school hours.
“Is this instruction, this religious instruction, isn’t it available also outside the parameters of the school day?” Baker asked.
DuBose acknowledged that it was but argued that some students lack transportation. The current law says whoever is teaching the religious instruction is responsible for transportation.
“This could provide access to religious instruction to students that can’t go to Wednesday night church because their parents are working,” she said. “Or they can’t even go to Sunday morning Sunday school because their parents are working and they don’t have a way to get there.”
During that public hearing LifeWise Vice President Derek Stemen told committee members that more than 40,000 public school students participate in LifeWise programs each week in more than 500 schools across the country.
“Some parents remove their children from public schools to send them to private school or even to homeschool them, often for the purpose of providing religious instruction,” Stemen said. “This is simply not feasible for all families, but that does not mean that all parents don’t want religious instruction for their children.”
The organization has pushed to expand in Alabama, and DuBose has pointed to its success as a model. But critics question its growing influence.
Suttle, who serves on the St. Clair County school board, said his district voluntarily created a policy allowing a local church to offer religious instruction. But he challenged DuBose’s assertion of widespread demand.
“At the state level, we have not seen any type of grassroots effort that is clamoring for religious release time,” he told lawmakers. He also raised concerns about LifeWise Academy, describing it as a “$35 million nonprofit that hired an Alabama lobbyist to push this bill here and in other states.”
LifeWise Academy’s revenue grew from $13.8 million in 2023 to $35.3 million in 2024, drawing criticism from groups who question its teachings and the time students spend away from core academics.
Molly Gaines, co-founder of Secular Education in America, a nonprofit formerly known as “Parents Against LifeWise,” said her group opposes the bill and others like it filed nationwide because it shifts power away from local school boards.
“This bill hands control to outside organizations while stripping local school boards of decision-making,” Gaines said in a statement to Alabama Daily News.
DuBose, whose children participated in a similar program years earlier, remains committed to the bill because this is what parents tell her they want.
“I’m voting for the parents,” DuBose said. “And this is about the kids. This is what this is about: the parents and the kids. What do they want? That’s who we work for.”
The committee did not vote on the bill but could when the Legislature returns from spring break next week.