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Wake County school board members reluctantly agreed Tuesday to allow students to miss one hour of class per week to attend religious instruction during school hours.
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The new state budget includes a provision requiring 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 gave initial approval to a policy change that will allow the minimum amount of one hour of excused absences for religious instruction each week.
Several board members said they were approving the policy change under protest solely to comply with state law.
“I’m going to always advise that we comply with state law,” said board member Chris Heagarty. “But I have to do so with this bill under protest because it’s just a bad piece of legislation no matter what your views.”
The vote was 8-1 for the policy change. A second and final vote is expected to be held later this month before the policy change goes into effect.
Currently, public schools are only allowed to teach about religion in a non-devotional way. Religion can be discussed in class as history and literature.
But now under state law, students can miss class to attend religious instruction if:
Republican Christian lawmakers who backed the new law have pointed out that it’s already allowed in other states.
But Heagarty, the board member, said the legislation doesn’t define what is religious instruction. He said this means that groups such as Satanists and cults will be able to take advantage of the new law and there’s nothing schools can do to reject the requests.
Board member Jennifer Job was the only person who voted against the policy. She cited both the loss of instructional time and the potential impact on non-Christian students.
“I can foresee the bullying and ostracizing of students of different faiths,” Job said.
The new released-time religious instruction requirement became law just as Christian groups such as LifeWise Academy have been expanding operations in North Carolina. The Ohio-based nonprofit provides Bible education and character-focused classes to public school students during regular school hours.
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LifeWise says it has three active chapters in North Carolina with 122 more planned. One of the new chapters is for Willow Springs Elementary School students in southern Wake.
LifeWise says on its website that it works with schools to offer the instruction during lunch and electives so that students don’t miss out on core classes.
Board member Cheryl Caulfield said they should welcome partnerships from groups such as LIfeWise that are seeking to mentor students. Caulfield said she was told by LifeWise that they do background checks on the people in the program.
“This is a very positive program for our students,” Caulfield said. “Why would we not be celebrating we have partnerships that are coming in to help where our students are in need?”
Board vice chair Sam Hershey quipped to Caulfield that he hoped LifeWay had “paid you for that infomercial.”
“As we hear from families saying get back to basics, I’m pretty sure taking them out of school does not help students get back to basics,” Hershey said.
Several speakers during public comment urged the school board to delay adoption of the policy or to make further changes.
“Let church be church and school be school,” said Susan Book, a Wake parent. “Don’t let those lines blur further.”
Multiple speakers raised questions about potential safety issues from having strangers on campus checking students out for the religious instruction. Others raised concerns about the academic impact of missing time from school.
“They do not have the best interests of our students or our schools at heart,” said the Rev. Suzanne Miller, executive director of Pastors for NC Children.
Wake Superintendent Robert Taylor said they’ll research the background check issue for people in the religious instruction programs. But he said that people who are registered sex offenders would already be prevented from coming on campus.
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This story was originally published September 1, 2026 at 8:47 PM.