They blocked the booth, pulled the flyers, and told kids to zip up their Bibles. A judge said no.

A federal judge in Washington state has ordered Everett Public Schools to stop treating a Christian released-time Bible program worse than secular organizations. The ruling is a partial but significant win for LifeWise Academy, a nonprofit that provides off-site religious instruction to elementary students during the school day.

U.S. District Judge Lauren King issued the preliminary injunction on April 24, granting some of the relief LifeWise requested and denying other parts. The case is far from over. Still, the court’s order reveals how far the district went to obstruct one Christian program.

LifeWise Academy operates at Emerson Elementary in Everett, offering Bible instruction two days per week under the well-established legal framework of released-time religious education. Parents sign permission slips. Kids leave campus. They come back. It has been legal for decades.

But according to the lawsuit and the court record, Everett officials decided LifeWise deserved special obstacles that no one else had to clear.

Well done, LifeWise Academy in Everett, WA: “Targeting the operation of an out-of-school program just because it’s religious is a direct violation of the First Amendment. We are grateful that the court has put a halt to the open and intentional acts of discrimination toward…

— Family Policy Institute of Washington (@FPIW) April 29, 2026

Decision Magazine reported that the district blocked LifeWise from a community resource fair, pulled its flyers from the school lobby, imposed burdensome permission-slip requirements, rejected a flyer in part because it showed a photograph of a boy praying, and required that LifeWise materials, including Bibles, remain sealed inside students’ backpacks during the school day.

LifeWise began serving Emerson Elementary families in January 2025 under the released-time model: parents opted in, students left campus during non-mandatory instruction, and the Bible lessons happened away from school property. The program was not asking Everett Public Schools to teach Christianity, spend district resources on religious instruction, or force participation on families that had not signed up.

The conflict escalated when the district started narrowing the ways families could learn about the program or participate in it. LifeWise was kept out of a community resource fair, lost access to school lobby flyer space, and then faced a more cumbersome permission-slip process for parents who wanted their children released for Bible instruction.

The faith-specific pieces are what made the dispute stand out. One electronic flyer was rejected in part because it showed a boy praying, and students were told to keep LifeWise materials, including Bibles, sealed in backpacks while they were back at school. That meant children could read other non-school materials during ordinary free-reading time, but not the materials connected to their Bible program.

Read that list again. They rejected a flyer because a child was photographed praying. They told students they could not pull out their own reading materials from a Bible program during free reading time while other non-scholastic materials were fine. That is not a neutral policy. That is targeting.

First Liberty Institute, which represents LifeWise and the families involved, announced the court’s order on April 27. The legal organization said the injunction halted discriminatory treatment toward the Bible education program.

First Liberty framed the ruling as a stop sign against regulations aimed at a religious released-time program. Its announcement emphasized that LifeWise provides off-campus Bible education during the school day under released-time religious instruction laws, with parents choosing whether their children participate and the instruction taking place outside the public-school classroom.

The legal group said the district singled LifeWise out through a cluster of restrictions: no community-event access, blocked or limited flyers, sealed written materials, and a weekly reauthorization system that made participation more burdensome for families. First Liberty also said the hostility was not merely implied, because public comments from a school board member openly targeted LifeWise and its mission.

That is why the legal issue was bigger than paperwork. If a school district treats a Christian program worse than secular programs, and officials have publicly expressed hostility toward that program’s religious message, the question becomes whether the government is enforcing neutral rules or punishing religious exercise and religious speech. First Liberty’s point was that equal treatment, not special privilege, was the remedy the families needed.

A school board member’s public comments carry real weight here. According to First Liberty and the court record, this board member expressed open hostility toward LifeWise Academy and reportedly called the organization homophobic bullies seeking an authoritarian theocracy. Once officials go on the record with language like that, it becomes very hard to argue their subsequent policy decisions were religiously neutral.

Now here is what the court actually ordered, based on the federal district court order:

The court granted the injunction in part and denied it in part, then identified four concrete areas where Everett School District had to change course while the case continues. The district must allow LifeWise to participate in community resource fairs and must allow LifeWise printed flyers in schools where secular organizations are allowed to display flyers.

The flyer ruling included the disputed image of a boy praying. The order also required the district to allow Emerson Elementary students to attend LifeWise using semester-long permission slips, so long as the slips identify no more than four specifically named adults who can pick up the students and list the dates and times for the semester’s LifeWise sessions.

The court also addressed student reading materials. Ms. Sweeny’s children must be allowed to read LifeWise materials during times of the school day when students may read other non-scholastic materials. That relief did not resolve every claim in the case, but it did cover the core practical barriers at issue: fairs, flyers, permission slips, and whether children could access their Bible-program materials under the same reading rules applied to other materials.

Each of those provisions comes down to the same principle: if you let secular organizations do it, you cannot ban a Christian one from doing the same thing because of its religious identity.

The injunction was granted in part and denied in part. LifeWise did not get everything it asked for. This is a preliminary ruling, and the case will continue. The relief the court did grant, however, exposes a school district that created a separate and worse set of rules for a faith-based program.

Nobody is asking Everett Public Schools to teach the Bible. Nobody is asking them to endorse LifeWise or promote Christianity. Released-time instruction happens off campus, on someone else’s dime, with parental consent. All the district has to do is treat this program the same way it treats the Boy Scouts, the local tutoring center, or any other community organization that puts a flyer in the lobby.

That kind of hostility toward a religious program should never require a federal lawsuit. A board member publicly called a Bible program a front for authoritarian theocracy, and that explains why it did.

The First Amendment does not require the government to help the church. It does require the government to stop singling out the church for punishment. That is the line Everett crossed, and a federal judge just said so in writing.

What do you think? Should parents have to go to federal court just to get equal treatment for a Bible program? Leave a comment below.