A lot of the payments we monitor are ones that we predict will negatively affect residence training; these embrace faculty selection measures. Others are impartial and embrace issues comparable to modifications to highschool
diploma necessities for all Maine college students; some we actively promote, comparable to proposed amendments to the state structure that codify parental rights. Most of those payments originate within the
Schooling and Cultural Affairs committee; some inside Well being and Human Providers or the Judiciary; however payments that may have an effect on residence training or your proper and obligation to boost your youngsters
can pop up wherever. Traditionally we’ve needed to take care of payments which have originated even throughout the Transportation committee. We point out this as a result of it highlights the necessity for
attentiveness and vigilance on our half. Many occasions the drafters of those payments haven’t any intention to hurt or have an effect on residence training in any means; however a lack of know-how about present
statutes, authorized precedents, or just a unsuitable selection of phrases may undo many a long time value of laborious work on the a part of HOME and homeschoolers to ascertain residence training in Maine as we
take pleasure in it right this moment.
Since January of this yr, we’ve already had various conversations with lawmakers and most have been responsive. We’ve been assured {that a} idea draft with a regarding title is NOT, in
truth, a college selection or instructional financial savings account proposal. We’ve had many conversations about a few faculty selection payments (one in all which is LD 220, An Act to Establish the Hope and Inclusion Scholarship Program in Order to
Provide Funding for Students Attending Certain Private Schools and Students Receiving Home Instruction) and inspired legislators to think about as a substitute non- refundable tax credit: we
appear to have transformed one in all our representatives who, as a substitute of drafting a college selection invoice that will have additionally netted homeschoolers as he initially meant, has proposed a tuition tax
credit score for personal faculties. We’ve gotten the sponsor of LD 482, An Act to Expand Educational Opportunities and Broaden Educational Services
for Students Enrolled in Equivalent Instruction Programs to agree to vary language that will have inadvertently compromised residence training – and we’re working with The Parental
Rights Basis to verify LD 492, a
RESOLUTION, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of Maine to Provide for Parental
Rights is hermetic and one thing we should always cheer on.
Public hearings that doubtlessly have an effect on residence training have already begun. We’d like your ongoing prayers and help, and, if and when it comes right down to it, your time and your voice to assist defeat
unhealthy payments and champion those who set up measures that replicate what all of us imagine to be good and true. That is what’s taking place in Maine; we sadly must now flip our consideration to
what’s taking place on the nationwide stage, to a corporation known as the Coalition for Accountable House Schooling.
Accountable residence training sounds good, proper? Isn’t that one thing all of us uphold and follow? Sadly, CRHE in the end has different issues in thoughts and a private axe to grind. They’ve
confirmed themselves to be adversary of non secular dad and mom specifically, and their affect has been rising in momentum. Their mannequin invoice, the “Make Homeschool Safe Act,” suggests enshrining in regulation many extra obstacles for households to residence
educate and critically hampers households from residence educating as they see match. It presumes the state is best knowledgeable and outfitted than dad and mom and sees the state and its brokers as
vital intermediaries between youngsters and oldsters in all circumstances. It could place a homeschool on probation if a baby doesn’t meet proficiency requirements for that state. (For example
the absurdity and pointed villainization of residence training this shows, at the moment just one quarter of fourth grade college students in Maine public faculties meet proficiency necessities for studying.
Would a state place itself on probation for its woeful lack of capability to coach college students?) It requires homeschool households to comply with the identical immunization necessities for entry for public
faculties annually. In a single breathtaking swoop, it presents the potential for a father or mother who has dedicated any previous crime, of any nature, to be prohibited from residence educating their little one.
Inside this yr, two payments have so far appeared in different state legislatures (Virginia and Illinois) that seem to have the Coalition for Accountable House Schooling behind them or not less than to
have taken their cue from CRHE’s mannequin invoice. In Virginia, Senate Bill 1031 would have abolished the state’s spiritual exemption for obligatory public faculty attendance – and the
cause and means many households residence educate.
Fortunately, this invoice was defeated – hopefully to by no means return in any iteration. Nonetheless, in Illinois, House Bill 2827 introduces a lot of calls for of the Make Homeschool Protected
Act, (many greater than at the moment exist underneath Illinois homeschool regulation) and would in impact impose extreme penalties – together with jail time and the position of kids in state foster care – on
dad and mom who resist.
Why is such opposition to homeschooling rearing its head now and why is it gaining traction? It’s an enormous matter with many elements and far to be surmised, however what most considerations us now’s a quantity
of high-profile little one abuse and/or little one dying circumstances that concerned so-called homeschooled college students, together with one in our state. We are saying so-called as a result of a few of these youngsters had been described as
“homeschooled” by their abusers however had been in actuality simply truant – their dad and mom or guardians had not complied with homeschooling statutes in any means, or else privateness legal guidelines prohibit us from
realizing whether or not these youngsters had ever been, underneath regulation, homeschool college students. It’s a particularly troublesome matter. Kids who’re horrifically abused and uncared for and hidden from every other
eyes deserve our consideration and safety greater than anybody. However when the broader public hears “abuse” and “homeschool” in the identical breath, all accountable, loving, and cheap homeschool dad and mom
grow to be suspect and topic to undue scrutiny. How can we steadiness these disparate realities?
Our success all the time relies on the efforts of a number of homeschoolers talking as much as our elected representatives. Make sure to keep tuned, alert, and able to take motion. Observe
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