Special to CosmicTribune.com, October 21, 2026

In a federal lawsuit settlement agreement, the Everett School District in Washington State has agreed to publicly apologize, undergo religious liberty training, and pay $275,000 in attorney’s fees for forcing students of faith at the district’s schools to hide their Bibles in sealed envelopes.

Joel Penton, founder and CEO of LifeWise Academy, told Fox News Digital in an interview Thursday that parents described the emotional toll of the Everett School District’s restrictions, which also included requiring families to submit permission slips every week for their children to attend voluntary, off-campus Bible instruction.

“I also heard from parents that their children felt like they were being told they had to hide their faith when they were told they had to put their Bibles and things in envelopes as though it was something to be ashamed of, and I know that was very hurtful as well,” Penton said.

Penton said LifeWise had operated in Everett for several years, serving dozens of students and families, before the school board changed its policies.

“Then the school board changed some of their policies in some ways that were pretty transparently discriminatory and infringed on the religious liberty of our program there,” Penton said. “And some of those policy changes included requiring parents, instead of simply signing a permission slip one time for the entire semester, the entire year, they were requiring them to hand-bring in a permission slip each and every week, which was quite onerous.”

Penton said they were told they were not allowed to participate at some of the community fairs, which he claimed other student organizations were able to participate in.

LifeWise Academy, which provides privately funded Bible instruction to public school students during the school day with parental permission, filed suit after the Everett School District imposed the restrictions that the organization argued unfairly targeted its program.

The dispute also reportedly involved openly hostile remarks from school board member Charles Adkins. First Liberty cited his public declaration: “I want to make it very, extremely, abundantly clear, that yes, I do in fact hold animus toward LifeWise Academy.”

The Everett School District also required LifeWise to remove a photograph of a boy praying from a proposed flyer, saying it could be viewed as proselytizing. U.S. District Judge Lauren King found the exclusion constituted viewpoint discrimination.

The court also examined the response to a community member who compared LifeWise to the Nazi Party at an August 2025 board meeting. Everett Board President Traci Mitchell thanked the commenter and later emailed that her comments and call for action had been heard. King considered those responses evidence supporting hostility toward LifeWise.

Although the district argued Adkins did not speak for it, King found his expressed hostility relevant because the board had a role in approving the guidelines.

The court cited plaintiffs’ evidence of more than 15 instances across nearly a dozen occasions when students were unable to attend LifeWise because of the new rules.

In its public apology, the district acknowledged that its implementation of policies created difficulties for participating families, particularly over student release procedures and the handling of religious materials.

The district also acknowledged that comments at board meetings, including remarks from directors, had been offensive and hurtful. “We recognize that these statements negatively affected the exercise of your faith,” the district stated.

The statement, signed by Superintendent Ian Saltzman and the five school board members, said the settlement would avoid prolonged litigation and additional expenditure of district resources while meeting its constitutional obligations to students and families.

250 Years of Freedom Is At Risk

  Schools in Washington state required Christian students to hide their Bibles