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IOWA

Iowa

Iowa state law (I.C.A. § 299.1D) provides that a school district shall excuse a student from attendance for the purpose of attending a course in religious instruction during the school day for at least one hour per week, but for not more than five hours per week, provided all statutory requirements are satisfied.

A parent or guardian (or emancipated student) must submit notification to the school. The private organization providing the course must maintain attendance records, provide transportation, assume liability for the student during instruction, and ensure the program does not exceed five hours per week. The school may not expend funds related to the program other than de minimis administrative costs.

Released Time programs may not be held on school property unless authorized pursuant to Iowa law, and students must agree to make up any missed schoolwork. Participation must be voluntary.

If a school district fails to comply with this section, a parent or emancipated student may bring a civil action for injunctive relief and actual damages, and the court shall award reasonable court costs and attorney fees to a prevailing party.

While the statute provides clear direction, it is advisable to conduct thorough research on current state and federal laws and court decisions before launching a program.

General Information

I.C.A. § 299.1D

Effective July 1, 2025 (2025 Iowa Acts, HF 870)

1. Section 299.1 shall not apply to a child while the child is attending a course in religious instruction that is provided by a private organization if all of the following requirements are satisfied:

a. The child's parent, guardian, or legal or actual custodian of the child, if the child is not an emancipated minor, or the child, if the child is an emancipated minor, must submit a notification to the public school or accredited nonpublic school informing the school that the child will attend a course in religious instruction during the school day.

b. The course in religious instruction must not require the child to be absent from school for more than five hours per week.

c. The private organization that provides the course in religious instruction must maintain attendance records and must make the attendance records available to the school district or accredited nonpublic school to verify when the child is attending a course in religious instruction.

d. Transportation related to the course in religious instruction must be provided by the private organization, the child's parent, guardian, or legal or actual custodian, or the child.

e. The private organization must make provisions for and assume liability for the child while the child is attending the course in religious instruction.

f. The school district or accredited nonpublic school must not expend any moneys related to the course in religious instruction, not including de minimis administrative costs associated with processing notifications received under paragraph “a” and tracking the child's attendance to ensure compliance with this section.

g. The course in religious instruction must not be held on school district property unless authorized by the board of directors of the school district pursuant to section 297.9.

h. The child must agree to make up any school work that the child does not complete while attending the course in religious instruction.

2. Each school district and each accredited nonpublic school shall, upon the request of a child's parent, guardian, or legal or actual custodian, if the child is not an emancipated minor, or the child, if the child is an emancipated minor, excuse the child from attendance for at least one hour per week, but for not more than five hours per week, so that the child can attend a course in religious instruction if all of the requirements under subsection 1 are satisfied.

3. A child's parent, guardian, or legal or actual custodian of the child, if the child is not an emancipated minor, or the child, if the child is an emancipated minor, who alleges that a school district has violated this section may bring a civil action for injunctive relief and actual damages against the school district. If the child's parent, guardian, or legal or actual custodian, or the child, is the prevailing party in a civil action instituted pursuant to this subsection, the court shall award reasonable court costs and attorney fees to the child's parent, guardian, or legal or actual custodian, or the child, as applicable.

Statutes

None.

Regulations

1953 Iowa Op. Att’y Gen., WL 83271

“The legislature of the state of Iowa has deemed it proper and advisable to encourage the attendance of children at religious services and to attend places where they will receive religious instruction. Section 299.2, Code of Iowa , 1950, contains the school attendance requirements of children. One who violates these requirements is a truant.

By the provisions of section 299.2 of the Code there is excepted from the truancy provisions by virtue of subsection 4 thereof, any child “while attending religious services or receiving religious instructions.”

As observed by the Supreme Court of the United States, we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We guarantee the freedom of worship as one chooses. We make room for as wide a diversity of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man may deem necessary. We sponsor a duty on the part of government that shows no partiality to any one group and that lets each flourish according to the zeal of its adherents.

Encouragement of religious instruction by the state and its co-operation with religious authorities in the adjustment of the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, follows the best of our traditions. A contrary view must find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show callous indifference to religious groups. Such a finding would favor those who believed in no religion over those who do believe.

There is no law of the state of Iowa which forbids such arrangement as is involved in your question administered upon an impartial basis. Nor is such an arrangement offensive to the Constitution of the United States or the state of Iowa.

You are, therefore, advised that it is the opinion of this office that the board of directors of an Iowa school district may make provision to excuse pupils for one hour per week on the written request of their parents, so that such pupils may attend religious instruction given by nonschool personnel at places which are not part of the school premises.”

Attorney General

Several cases within the 8th Circuit have made summary references to Zorach. See e.g., Bogen v. Doty, 598 F.2d 1110, 1113 (8th Cir. 1979) (In Zorach, the “practice of releasing students for periods of religious instruction [was] upheld.”); Brusca v. Missouri, 332 F. Supp. 275, n. 2 (E.D. Mo. 1971)(stating that Zorach, when read in conjunction with McCollum v. Bd. of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948), “teaches that it is one thing to cooperate with religion by permitting the release of public school children for religious instruction without cost to the state on off-school premises, and quite another to assist such a religious program financially, even to the limited extent of allowing the use of school buildings for that purpose.”).

Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952).

In Zorach, the United States Supreme Court upheld a released time program in which public school students were excused from school during the day to receive off-campus religious instruction. The Court held that releasing students for religious instruction off school property, without public funding and without coercion, does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

*The rulings of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals are binding precedent in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Case Law