COLUMBUS, Ohio — A bill that would allow public and private schools to carry drug overdose reversal medicines and use them in emergencies is headed to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature.
House Bill 57 passed the Senate 28 to 4 on Wednesday. The Ohio House later concurred with the Senate’s changes, approving it 78-18.
The bill originally had been noncontroversial, having passed the House on May 7 unanimously. But in the Senate, an amendment was added to the bill to provide more flexibility for students who want to leave school in the middle of the day for release time for religious instruction.
The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed students to leave school for release time in a 1952 decision, if the religious program is off campus, students are not forced to attend it and public school resources were not used to support the program. Ohio law prohibits release time during core subjects – math, English-language arts, science or social studies.
Last year, the legislature changed the law that had said schools were given the option to allow students to leave for release time, to requiring all school districts adopt a policy for release time. This came with the growth of LifeWise Academy, a Christian, biblical-based character education program headquartered in the Columbus suburbs that is growing fast throughout the state and country.
In the budget that passed in late June, lawmakers tweaked the release time law, limiting school districts to just two periods a week of release time.
But Sen. Andrew Brenner, a Delaware County Republican, said around 50 school districts, primarily in Northwest Ohio, contacted lawmakers, saying that the two periods requirement was limiting Catholic students who normally ran down the street to the local church for daily Mass and sometimes catechism.
So the Senate Education Committee amended HB 57 to say local school boards can extend the cap for release time beyond the two periods.
State Sen. Kent Smith, a Euclid Democrat, supported the bill in its original form for permitting schools to carry overdose antagonists. But he disagreed with the release time amendment because the issue lacked a proper legislative debate.
“We heard in committee that somebody was contacted by 50 different school districts saying, ‘Oh, we’ve got to fix this,’” Smith said. “Well, that’s why we have hearings in a legislative committee. Let those 50 school districts come and make their case.”
In the House, the Republican and Democratic sponsors urged the chamber to vote for the bill, although some Democrats expressed that the released time portion of the bill should have been in standalone legilation.