1. Homeschooling families
put a stop to onerous testing
rules.
Families packed the MINNESOTA Statehouse
twice in February to protest a bill that would
have empowered public school superintendents to create and enforce new testing protocols, restricting their ability to homeschool.
“This would have made Minnesota homeschool testing law the most restrictive in
the nation,” said HSLDA Staff Attorney Amy
Buchmeyer.
The families were alerted to the proposed
bill by the Minnesota Association of Christian
Home Educators. Julie Johnson, the group’s
legislative affairs director, identified the
testing language while combing through 6,670
bills introduced in the legislative session. The
relevant language amounted to eight lines of
text buried in a 110-page document.
Remarkably, legislators responded to the
input of those families by striking the testing
provisions from the bill. Parents will not be
required to submit standardized test results to local public school superintendents and are
free to customize their children’s education
according to their needs.
2. Streamlined regulations
and enacted protections for
homeschooling families.
Advocates and legislators took advantage of
an education policy overhaul in OHIO to fix
a burdensome notification process and enact
new protections for homeschooling families.
The new law drastically reduces the amount
of paperwork Ohio families must file with
local officials and spells out homeschool
protections in the law for the first time. Homeschooling families simply need to submit a
notice of intent and give the superintendent
14 days to acknowledge receipt of the notice.
Letters of excuse, required subjects, teaching
requirements, mandatory hours, and mandated annual testing are all things of the past.
Melanie Elsey, legislative liaison for
Christian Home Educators of Ohio, worked
closely with Buchmeyer to spot the proposed
changes and take advantage of the opportunity to push for improvements to the law. State
Rep. Sarah Fowler-Arthur, a homeschool graduate herself, was a key figure in shepherding
those positive changes through the legislature.
“We recognized there was a potential for
positive steps, as well as the opportunity to
make Ohio similar to other states in terms of
homeschool protection,” Fowler-Arthur said.
“This is really going to support parents as they
direct the education of their children.”
3. Reversed longstanding
restrictions on homeschooling.
After a spike in homeschooling in recent
years, officials in VERMONT were overwhelmed with the amount of mandatory
paperwork rolling in, so they decided to reduce
it by reversing restrictions on homeschooling.
Parents no longer need to submit end-of-year
assessments or a minimum course of study,
and they can choose how to evaluate their
child’s yearly progress. The change puts an end
to the legal limbo that homeschooling families
found themselves in each year while waiting
for officials to approve their paperwork.
“The creative nature of homeschooling children will be opened up by this,” said Retta Dunlap, a homeschool veteran who worked closely
with Vermont legislators on the law change.
4. Expanded access to public
school programs for homeschooling families.
PENNSYLVANIA law now recognizes homeschooling families as having the right to participate in an expanded number of public school
programs, including band, orchestra, academic
courses, and career and technical education programs. HSLDA attorneys have had to take action
to remind several school districts of this, but
have succeeded in encouraging them to expand
their policies in accordance with the new law.
5. Secured equal access to
public school sports for
homeschooling families.
As of March, homeschool students in ARKANSAS have a legal right to access public
school sports and other activities. School
districts, including charter schools, must enact
policies that open enrollment to homeschoolers. KANSAS and MONTANA also moved to
secure access to extracurricular activities and
classes for homeschooling students. These
expansions give families more flexibility in
choosing resources and activities to add to
their homeschool.
6. Expanded the definition
of homeschooling.
WYOMING passed a bill that removed
longstanding discriminatory language from
the law, which previously made it harder for
homeschool families to participate in co-ops
and other homeschool groups. Multi-family
educational activities are now included in the
definition of homeschooling, which means
Wyoming homeschoolers now have the
flexibility to use learning pods, co-ops, and
other programs according to the needs of their
child.
An ongoing journey
Every one of these laws will advance homeschool freedom, secure the rights of parents,
and expand opportunities for their children.
And we celebrate these wins.
But some of the laws passed this year resulted in setbacks for homeschooling families,
and we’re keeping tabs on those as well. For
example, the starting age of compulsory
school attendance in NEVADA was reduced
from 7 to 6.
Another issue on our radar is Education
Savings Accounts. HSLDA worked with state
and local homeschool leaders in several
states to ensure that homeschooling remains
free from additional government entanglements. You can read more about what happened with ESAs in 2023, and why HSLDA
opposes them, here in this issue of the
Court Report.
As homeschooling continues to garner more
support and more freedom, we will continue
to communicate with lawmakers on behalf of
homeschooling families.
