Education Department - Catholic Conference of Ohio

The Catholic Conference of Ohio testified in support of two bills this week. SB49 would require each K-12 public school to adopt a policy providing students, teachers, and staff up to three days of religious expression leave per academic year. CCO supported the bill and affirmed the religious liberty to allow Catholic students and public-school staff across Ohio the ability to observe Holy Days as excused absences. HB34 would excuse breastfeeding mothers from jury service. In support of the bill, CCO commented on the Catholic Church’s commitment to promoting and acting on a vision of society that stands with mothers during and after pregnancy through personal accompaniment and pro-family public policies.

The Catholic Conference of Ohio supports SB 11 (Enact the Parental Education Freedom Act), which would allow every student in the state of Ohio the opportunity to receive an EdChoice Scholarship. For decades, the Catholic Conference of Ohio and the Catholic Church nationwide have led advocacy for expanding school choice to allow more students of all backgrounds and income levels to attend Catholic schools. We must uphold public policies that strengthen the family as the central social institution of society.

Click below to take action and ask your Ohio Senator to support SB 11 and expand EdChoice Scholarships to all Ohio students.

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The Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in the case of Carson v. Makin, which challenged a decision by the First Circuit to allow the State of Maine to exclude religious schools from a tuition assistance benefit on the basis that those schools include religion as part of their instruction. By vote of 6-3, the Court ruled in favor of the petitioners. Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee for Religious Liberty, and Bishop Thomas A. Daly of Spokane, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Catholic Education, issued a statement in the response to the Court’s ruling.

The Catholic School Family Applicants are made up of families whose children specifically attend Catholic schools. These families are Catholic and non-Catholic and from different socioeconomic, racial, and geographic backgrounds. They have all expressed specific reasons why they have chosen to use the EdChoice scholarship to send their children to a Catholic school.

Judge Jaiza Page of the Franklin County Common Pleas Court granted these families' motion to intervene in the EdChoice lawsuit filed in January 2022.

Page reviewed several legal criteria under which outside parties can be granted intervention and determined the families qualified as permissive intervenors, as their claims share "a common question of law and fact" with the named defendants, the state of Ohio, Ohio Department of Education, and State Board of Education. Judge Page also noted families had previously been granted permissive intervention in a challenge to the Cleveland scholarship program.

"Allowing the applicants to intervene will not unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the rights of the original parties," Page wrote.