House Bill 8 was signed by Governor DeWine on 8 January 2025 and took effect ninety days later.
The law does two distinct things and they are often discussed as though they were one. The first protects a parent’s right to make decisions about their own child. The second provides for religious released time, the arrangement under which a student may leave school grounds for religious instruction with a parent’s permission.
For a parent, the change is that more of the answer is now written down. The obligations run to you rather than around you and they attach to the district rather than to the goodwill of an individual administrator.
What it does not do is decide what a school teaches. It decides what a school has to tell you about it.
The questions worth asking your district: what is the notification policy, who signs it off and what is the released-time process in practice.
Written from CCV’s own record, the bill number, vote counts, dates and sponsors are verified against ccv.org. The wording is not CCV’s and needs their sign-off.
