New Montana law allows public school students to receive religious instruction off campus
A new Montana law will allow students to be excused from school to receive religious instruction, amid a national revival of religious tolerance in the public square.
HB 343, signed into law by…

A new Montana law will allow students to be excused from school to receive religious instruction, amid a national revival of religious tolerance in the public square.
HB 343, signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, revises the state’s education laws to give parents the option to have their children briefly excused from school during the school day to receive religious education. The law instructs “school district trustees to provide a religious instruction released time program,” specifying that the programs must allow students to be released from school at least one hour per week.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization dedicated to religious freedom and parental rights issues, praised the new law.
“The government should not stop families from raising their children in their family’s faith,” ADF Senior Counsel Greg Chafuen said in a statement. “HB 343 respects parents’ educational decisions, allowing public school children to be briefly excused from school to receive free, off-campus religious instruction taught by private charitable organizations.”
Chafuen credited Montana’s governor, as well as state Rep. Randyn Gregg and state Sen. Sue Vinton for “making sure parents are in the driver’s seat when it comes to their kids’ education.”
“As the U.S. Supreme Court explained, respecting parents’ decisions for their child to participate in released time programs ‘follows the best of our traditions,’” he noted.
Montana’s law forbids the released time programs from being “established or administered in such a way that public school property is utilized for the purpose of religious instruction.” It also prohibits public money from being used “directly or indirectly for the religious instruction.”
The new law comes as efforts across the country are ramping up to increase parental oversight in education, as well as to expand religious expression in public spaces.
While critics have raised concerns that these religious-related measures could violate the separation of church and state, the Trump administration has been vocal in its support on a national level for religious freedom. President Trump created a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias, as The Lion reported last month, and he recently created a Religious Liberty Commission to “safeguard and promote America’s founding principle of religious freedom.”