[2] CES courses of study are separate and distinct from religious instruction provided through wards (local congregations).

Public taxation instituted in 1851 supported these schools, which were organized by LDS Church wards, with their teacher employed by the local bishop.

[3]: 11  While Utah's colonization was started by members of the LDS Church, twenty percent of the territory's residents were not Latter-day Saints by 1880.

[3]: 14 The Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887 prohibited use of "sectarian" or religious books in the classroom and changed the district superintendent position to one that was appointed instead of elected.

[3]: 18–19  Wilford Woodruff disliked the new public schools, calling them a "great evil," and created the academies system and an after-school program of religious classes for children.

[5] Release-time seminary classes started in 1912 at Granite High School in Salt Lake City, and grew to serve 26,000 students by 1930.

[6]: 398–399 In the LDS Church, the word seminary refers to religious education programs designed for secondary students.

In areas with large concentrations of Latter-day Saints, such as in and around the Mormon Corridor in the United States, instruction is offered on a released time basis during the normal school day in meetinghouses, or facilities built specifically for seminary programs, adjacent to public schools.

Early-morning seminary classes are held daily before the normal school day in private homes or in meetinghouses and are taught by volunteer teachers.

Home-study seminary classes are offered where geographic dispersion of students is so great that it is not feasible to meet on a daily basis.

Home-study classes are usually held in connection with weekly youth fellowship activities on a weekday evening.

[citation needed] CES institutions provide elementary and secondary schools in Mexico and in the Pacific Islands.

[12]: 99 In 1886, the Mexican state of Chihuahua housed an outpost for Latter-day Saints fleeing anti-polygamy laws in the US.

[6]: 389  In an attempt to escape persecution, more than three hundred Latter-day Saints settled in nine different communities in Chihuahua and Sonora.

Located within the church's Colonia Juárez in Chihuahua, the school was similar to academies in the Utah territory and provided English-language instruction intended for "an Anglo population.

[6]: 392  Settlers from Utah Territory remained isolated and aloof from native Mexicans, celebrating American holidays and teaching in English.

[6]: 397  Benemerito De Las Americas closed in 2013 when the campus was converted into a Missionary Training Center.

[12]: 116 Shortly after the first mission was organized in Chile in 1961,[12]: 102  Dale Harding became the superintendent of two elementary schools in La Cisterna and Vina del Mar, which were opened in March 1964.

[12]: 103, 106  Rather than use the traditional lecture-exam format, teachers varied their teaching methods to include group work and in-service training.

Kindergartens operated in LDS chapels in Arica, Inquique, and La Calera to keep them from being used by the government for other purposes.

Loosle was asked to return as superintendent after Church headquarters reassigned Rojas to a school in Mexico.

[12]: 125  In 1973, Beningno Pantoja Arratia became the new superintendent, and he made several reforms, including requiring ecclesiastical interviews.

[30] The office of Church Commissioner of Education was suspended in 1989, when trustees decided to deal directly with individual administrators.