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Wake County is not planning to allow students to miss more than one hour per week of class time to attend religious instruction.
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The new state budget requires North Carolina public schools to allow students to be excused from class for one to four hours a week of religious instruction. On Tuesday, the Wake County school board’s policy committee backed a policy change to comply with the minimum amount of time required under state law of one hour per week.
“I would do this as minimal as possible,” said board vice chair Sam Hershey. “This is a total disruption to public education and to our staff. It’s totally not necessary for somebody with strong religious practices to create time during our public school time.”
The full board will vote on the policy next week on Sept. 1.
The religious time provision was one of many non-fiscal items included in the state budget approved by legislators in July.
Sen. Brad Overcash, a Gaston County Republican who proposed allowing for the missed time, had cited how it was allowed in other states.
“These programs are important to help build the moral and religious character of our students,” Overcash said at a Senate committee meeting in June.
Under state law:
School boards across the state are now adopting policies to comply with the new law. Julie Crain, Wake’s senior director of policy, said up to two hours a week in Chowan County is the most she’s seen any district allow so far.
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Cheryl Caulfield and Wing Ng, the board’s two conservative members, suggested allowing more than one hour per week.
“Making it one hour might not be sufficient if transportation is part of that, Wake County being such a big place,” Ng said.
Caulfield cited the traffic around Wake Forest for why an hour isn’t enough. But Caulfield said she expected it would be more of an exception rather than the rule that students would miss up to four hours in a week.
“I don’t think anybody should be allowed to take four hours off a week to go practice religion because this is not the right environment,” Caulfield said.
But a majority of board members balked at allowing more than one hour.
“I will absolutely not support one minute over one hour,” said board member Lynn Edmonds, who chairs the policy committee. “We are in the business of educating children. I think this is just a very harmful detrimental addition.”
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This story was originally published August 26, 2026 at 5:15 AM.