For nearly 40 years, HSLDA has been in the struggle for homeschool freedom.
Along with other homeschool organizations, especially at the state level, we have consistently undertaken freedom-oriented strategic goals. We use every tool of policy advocacy at our disposal to persuade the courts, state legislatures, the media, the public at large, and Congress that homeschooling works and is good for kids and for communities.
In the early days we mobilized other homeschoolers with phone trees—now we use emails and the internet. The methods have changed, but the mission’s the same: making homeschooling possible, which is why we passionately advocate for the freedom to homeschool and why we offer support for every stage of your homeschool journey.
For HSLDA to legitimately engage in all our policy pursuits, we needed to do some restructuring per federal non-profit tax laws, campaign-finance laws, and lobbying laws. For long and boring reasons, HSLDA and our predecessor sister organization, the Home School Foundation, merged under the name of HSLDA. And the legal corporation that had been HSLDA was renamed HSLDA Action.
Which leads me to answer the question: “Why HSLDA Action?” HSLDA and HSLDA Action are still sister organizations, under the same leadership, both sharing the goal of protecting and expanding homeschool freedom. But because of federal laws, some of what we do doesn’t land in the same corporate bucket as some of the other things we do.
HSLDA proper is where the bulk of our legal advocacy, educational consultant support, and charitable giving through our Compassion grant program, and our media/communications team reside. And HSLDA Action is where our federal relations department, Generation Joshua program, and our federal political committees all live. (For details on these HSLDA Action programs, click here.)
None of these programs are new to HSLDA’s portfolio of activities in the struggle to keep homeschooling free. In fact, the newest of these programs began over 15 years ago. The only real change is that now they reside in HSLDA Action rather than HSLDA proper.
This restructuring is not just for legal compliance though. Grouping these programs in two new separate buckets creates efficiencies, enables us to be more nimble, and sparks synergy between similar programs. Since our reorganization, as the world works its way back to normality post-COVID, we have revived and refreshed an old program—the Congressional Action Program (CAP). In this article, Joel Grewe, Executive Director of HSLDA Action, will tell you more about this and other programs.
HSLDA and HSLDA Action share the same mission: keeping homeschooling free for homeschool moms and dads just like you and me.