Satanic Temple offering elementary school release program for students in Ohio

The Satanic Temple will offer an optional religious class at an elementary school in Ohio.

The program is called Hellions Academy of Independent Learning, or HAIL, and will be offered to children at the Edgewood Elementary School in the Marysville School District.

'We are not devil worshippers. We are non-theistic satanists.'

HAIL's program director, June Everett, told WSYX-TV that the program will allow students to learn about concepts like empathy, compassion, and justice without religious coercion.

"When they hear it, it’s initially shocking, oh, the Satanic Temple," Everett explained. "They automatically think evil and awful things. We are not devil worshippers. We are non-theistic satanists."

The program will be offered as part of a Release Time Religious Instruction program. Students have been allowed to be released from school to study at Christian programs, so parents called on the Satanic Temple to create an alternative according to satanist values and beliefs.

Community organizer Betty Elswick and another parent called the satanists.

"We wanted to make sure that we had a program that was teaching compassion and empathy and also inclusion," Elswick told WSYX. "Several parents had expressed concerns about their kids coming home and being bullied or made fun of and teased for not participating in the other programs in the area."

There are only four students who have signed up for the satanic instruction, but Elswick claims others have expressed interest.

"As long there is one child to attend and one family that wants to send their child, that is all we care about. We are not in this for the numbers," she added.

Among the other concepts children will learn through the satanic program are critical thinking, self-directed learning, compassion, and problem-solving skills.

WSYX said it reached out to Marysville Schools Superintendent Diane Allen for comment about the program but had not heard back.

In October, the Satanic Temple said it would be expanding abortion services from New Mexico to Virginia.

The interview with Elswick and some parents can be viewed on the news video channel for WSYX on YouTube.

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