Will LifeWise Academy Take Kentucky Students to the Ark and Creation Museum?
Certain Christian Nationalists, part of an organization known as LifeWise Academy, have found a way to get their religion into public schools in Ohio and are attempting to do the same here in Kentucky (and many other states). In Kentucky this could result in public school students visiting the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum in lieu of public school instruction. Below, I document Ohio students being taken to these fundamentalist Christian attractions with the cooperation of public schools. Kentucky students may also end up learning creationist nonsense during public school instruction time.
Recently, LifeWise Academy has been attempting to get a foothold in Kentucky’s 171 public school districts. LifeWise Academy is an Ohio-based ministry that has found a possible loophole to get Bible-based instruction into public school classrooms during school hours via “release time.” Release time laws in many places allow students to leave public school instruction for an hour a day, or in some places an hour a week, to receive religious instruction off-campus. However, LifeWise Academy has made release time into a major event where students get to leave school to receive numerous perks, such as pizza parties, while being evangelized and instructed in other ways.
Students whose parents do not allow them to participate have to remain in school for classes or study hall. There have been many complaints in Ohio of students that do not participate being bullied and/or ostracized. Many of the LifeWise activities promote Christian Nationalism, fake history, and various right-wing political ideologies, which leads to more bullying of marginalized students who do not participate. This mistreatment of non-participants is well-documented in the Facebook Group (Secular Education Program, formerly Parents AGAINST LifeWise).
The LifeWise organization is very well funded. Most LifeWise organizations in Ohio have their own bright red painted school buses. The ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation has given LifeWise Academy a portion of a million dollar award for their child evangelism. Here is an excellent news article about some of LifeWise’s activities.
Early in 2025, the Kentucky General Assembly passed Senate Bill 19, which allows schools to let students receive “moral instruction” from outside groups. This legislation opened the door for LifeWise to request each of Kentucky’s 171 school districts to allow them access. (Kentucky has 120 county school systems plus a number of cities have systems separate from their county.)
LifeWise was recently rejected by the Warren County Public Schools (near Bowling Green). However, this rejection has been appealed with the help of the Family Foundation of Kentucky (more about them below). Presently, Oldham County Public Schools (the county east of Louisville) is considering allowing a LifeWise program to operate there. Apparently, proposals will be made in numerous other districts in the coming months.
Much of the effort to push LifeWise into Kentucky schools is due to their regional partnership with the Family Foundation of Kentucky. The Family Foundation has provided legal representation to LifeWise at a Kentucky school board meeting (see here and here).
The Family Foundation of Kentucky almost derailed the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards in 2013 and provided anti-evolution inserts for church bulletins as part of their campaign. Apparently, the Family Foundation is including a speaker from LifeWise at their annual “Family Forum” in late September.
Because of my long-standing opposition to Answers in Genesis’s Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, I became interested in establishing whether these Kentucky “attractions” were being visited by LifeWise students from Ohio. Google searches and Facebook searches using the terms “LifeWise Ark Encounter” and “LifeWise Creation Museum” brought up numerous examples of LifeWise bringing students to both attractions. Many times these trips occurred during Spring and Fall breaks, but many times they were done during school time and using the school as a staging place for the red LifeWise bus to pick up and return the students. LifeWise Academy Ohio chapters apparently sent students from these towns and/or school districts: Adams County, Clark-Shawnee, Holgate, West-Cental, Continental, Antwerp, Wayne Trace, Central Local, Van Wert, Paulding Exempted, Tinora, Pandora-Gilboa, Continental Elementary, and Upper Arlington. There may be many more that did not post about their trip to Facebook.
Many of these groups went across state lines from Ohio to Kentucky multiple times over the last several years. At least one group, Continental Elementary departed and returned to the public school after an all-day trip to the Ark.
Figure 1 is part of the permission slip. Some of the trips are paid for by various fundraisers, including breakfasts and spaghetti dinners (see Figure 2).
I have visited both the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum. My reviews can be found on The Panda’s Thumb here, as well as here and here. The contents of these ersatz “museums” are simply incredible in the most literal sense of the word. Both attractions are devoted to a crude biblical literalism, which has the earth and universe only approximately 6,000 years old, most geology being the result of Noah’s Flood in 2,348 BCE, dinosaurs being fire-breathing dragons, and other complete nonsense.
The words pseudoscience and anti-science are not adequate to describe the attacks on various fields of science by the Ark and Creation Museum including, but not limited to, geology, paleontology, biology, astronomy, paleoanthropology, climate science, archaeology, linguistics, and history. An adult with a reasonable education in any of these fields, or just with basic reasoning skills, may be amused or angered by the contents, but an elementary school kid is only going to be confused or seriously misinformed after a visit. Since many of the claims in these venues imply a conspiracy by actual scientists who study these fields, a student may feel discouraged from pursuing a career in science.
My favorite absolutely cringeworthy example of an Ark-load of ignorant misinformation is in the Ark Encounter, where a well-crafted diorama depicts a three-way death match between giants, humans, and a Carnotaurus dinosaur. This extra-Biblical fantasy occurs in a “pre-Flood” arena. Apparently, this “scientific” display is based on a series of three novels by an employee of Answers in Genesis, the ministry behind the Ark (see Figure 3).
Because of the political support LifeWise has from our far-right politicians and many members of the public, it may be extremely difficult to stop LifeWise from having student trips to the Answers in Genesis attractions, either on public school time or using public school resources. If the churches supporting LifeWise in Ohio are willing to send children across state lines for creationist indoctrination, then their Kentucky LifeWise supporters will have no compunction about sending children from distant parts of the state to the Ark and Creation Museum. Kentucky lacks an actual natural history museum, and many of our children are going to be instructed in fake science if LifeWise gets a foothold in Kentucky schools. I hope parents and educators speak out on this matter. Unfortunately, in many areas, this mixing of extremist religion and education will be ignored or even encouraged.