Legal Threats During School Hours: LifeWise Sends Demand Letter to Washington State School
First direct legal challenge against a U.S. public school district, LifeWise Academy issues legal threat to Everett, Washington schools.
Unless otherwise noted, all bold emphasis is solely attributable to LifeWise Exposed.
On November 19, 2025, LifeWise Academy — represented by First Liberty Institute and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) — sent a formal demand letter to Washington State-based Everett Public Schools alleging constitutional violations and setting a December 5, 2025 deadline for the district to amend policies it views as infringing upon First Amendment rights.
The letter asserts that Everett schools have been “targeting LifeWise for unfair treatment” and that a board member’s comments “reflect an animus toward religion that offends our most basic constitutional principles.”
LifeWise requests that the district:
“…retract its guidelines for the treatment of ‘religious-related activities or instruction’ and inform District officials of its retraction; (2) within 45 days of the date of this letter, amend Board Policy 2340P sections (C), (G), and (I) to apply without regard to a student’s or organization’s viewpoint or the content of speech; and (3) cease censoring and violating the free speech and free exercise rights of religious community groups including LifeWise, parents, and students.”
This legal escalation follows over a year of discussion in Everett concerning LifeWise’s presence at Emerson Elementary School — which launched January 2025 — particularly its practice of removing students from campus during the school day and the district’s lack of an established policy governing third-party access to children.
LifeWise’s first legal threat to a public school
LifeWise itself is no stranger to litigation; the organization sued a former volunteer for publishing its curriculum online, and petitioned the Supreme Court of Ohio for a religious exemption following a former employee’s civil rights complaint.
While First Liberty has previously spoken of suing school districts over alleged First Amendment violations should they enact policies which prohibit returning LifeWise students from bringing back candy and treats to school, and also issued legal warnings to Ohio-based consultant Neola over RTRI policy recommendations, the demands issued to Everett are the first known legal threat by LifeWise to a public school district.
Reflecting the scale of its projection to serve ~100,000 students nationally during the 2025-2026 schools year, LifeWise’s lead council at BCLP, Barbara Smith Tyson, previously clerked under U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Jr.
On its website FAQ, Everett addresses LifeWise:
“Everett Public Schools does not partner with Lifewise Academy and neither endorses nor opposes this or any religious program. Rather, the district complies with District Policy 2340, which governs Religious-Related Activities and Practices, and adheres to Procedure 2340P. These policies align with both Washington State and federal law, with which the district is required to comply.”
While Everett has said policies, it should be noted that the school district is releasing children to LifeWise while operating without an official release time religious instruction (RTRI) policy and Washington State itself has no RTRI statutes.
LifeWise complains of Nazi comparison, has antisemitic content in its own curriculum
In its letter to Everett schools, LifeWise complains of comparison made to Nazis —
“Other community members have made similarly unhinged comments at Board meetings, even comparing LifeWise to the Nazi party taking ‘trains . . . through [German] towns . . . [that] were filled with broken down souls on their way to the gas chambers.’ These statements are offensive and ridiculous.”
— and has not addressed the dozens of antisemitic teachings in its own curriculum.
LifeWise’s criticism of Everett guidelines
Among other provisions, LifeWise demanded Everett “reverse course” on its guidelines:
prohibiting LifeWise from participating in community events and displaying its flyers (while allowing secular groups to participate and display information about their organizations);
requiring LifeWise students to conceal any written materials they receive from LifeWise in a sealed envelope in their backpacks (treatment not imposed on students with secular extracurricular materials); and
requiring that LifeWise parents follow a needlessly complicated and burdensome permission-slip policy, namely, weekly reauthorization for students to participate in LifeWise (while other parents, whose children participate in secular activities, do not face such a burden).
LifeWise asserts such requirements treat religious programs differently from secular activities and cites them as evidence of unconstitutional disparate treatment. LifeWise has made similar complaints in a legal warning sent to Neola.
Respect Public Schools-WA (RPS-WA) — formed in response to LifeWise entering Washington State by “concerned parents and guardians, clergy, and community members who firmly believe in the separation of church and state for public schools” — has stated as LifeWise is the sole organization removing children during the school day at Everett schools its complaint of religious discrimination is not grounded in fact as no comparable religious or secular program has been denied equal access or treatment.
As revealed by a public records request submitted by RPS-WA, since beginning operation at Emerson Elementary LifeWise’s staff has failed to consistently follow the sign in/sign out procedures and child safety protocols required by Everett school administration.
Within its demand letter, LifeWise also criticizes Everett as being unconstitutionally hostile toward religion — a potential First Amendment violation — as the result of the exercise of free speech by a school board member’s public comment.
School board remarks enter public record
LifeWise’s demand letter highlights public comments made by Everett School Board Director Charles Adkins on July 1, 2025, which LifeWise characterizes as evidence of “religious animus.” In the meeting, Adkins stated:
“My conscience demands that I speak about this… I also believe strongly that what we are allowing LifeWise to do is wrong and is harming our kids. The very kids I was elected to protect.”
Adkins further described LifeWise as “supported by the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025 effort to turn our nation into a fascist theocracy” and asserted that the program “cannot be allowed to have access to our kids.” Adkins connected his concerns to his own experience at a federal Native American boarding school:
“And as someone who attended one of the last remaining boarding schools, still run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I’m all too familiar with the dark history that religious education has in this country with its treatment of kids of color, of native kids, of LGBT kids. I’m all too familiar with the attempts in the past and present by the white Christian majority to snuff out the cultures, religion, and language of native kids and other kids of color. We cannot allow this religious brainwashing and bullying of non-Christian and LGBT kids to take place when we can do something to stop it. We must do everything we possibly can to protect our kids.”
In September 2025, the Heritage Foundation recognized LifeWise Academy with an Innovation Award.
Local reporting documents disruption and policy gaps
In April 2025, HeraldNet provided additional context about how LifeWise operates in Everett. The program uses a branded red bus to transport students during recess and lunch, and the bus is a visible presence at Emerson Elementary. The newspaper reported, “Every Tuesday and Wednesday, the red bus comes back to Emerson Elementary” to transport children to an off-campus site for Bible instruction.
Some parents described impacts on the school day. One parent said that when children return from LifeWise, “kids can’t shut up for the rest of the day. That’s all they talk about.”
Another parent reported that their child experiences anxiety on days when LifeWise students wear matching shirts, noting, “Maybe it doesn’t rise to the level of bullying… But she knows Wednesdays.”
Local clergy also raised constitutional and policy considerations. Rabbi Brett Weisman characterized LifeWise’s school-day model as “trying to find a loophole in the separation of church and state,” and Rev. Carol Jensen stated she viewed the program within a broader political movement to instill Christian values in public institutions.
Jennifer Phillips McLellan, a parent at Everett and founding member of RPS-WA, questioned why LifeWise targets public schools:
“Why is it public school? Why is it elementary school? …Because they’re vulnerable and impressionable.”
Conclusion
The events in Everett illustrate a conflict between community calls for clearer safety and procedural rules, the district’s attempts to standardize its policies, and LifeWise Academy’s position that these changes constitute unlawful discrimination against religious expression. The demand letter signals a potential legal confrontation that may influence how Washington school districts — and public schools nationally — regulate released time religious programs and manage third-party access to students during the school day.