Democrats have rewritten their last remaining homeschooling bill in an effort to make the legislation palatable enough to clear the House.
The rewrite of House Bill 5468 would remove a requirement that families submit evidence of instruction to the state each year. Parents would still have to notify schools in person when withdrawing a child to homeschool, and they would still have to pass a one-time check to see if someone in the household is on the state abuse and neglect registry or under investigation by the Department of Children and Families.
The rewrite also drops language allowing homeschooled students to take up to two classes in public schools and participate in extracurriculars.
Rep. Jennifer Leeper, D-Fairfield, has led the effort to get HB 5468 passed. She said the latest changes are meant to address concerns that the legislation was changing too much, too fast.
For now, this new version is still just a suggestion — an “uncalled amendment.” The House will have to call it during an upcoming session, at which point members can vote on it. If it succeeds, the amended bill will go to the Senate. Leeper said she expects it to be called but doesn’t know when.
The clock is ticking: The overall legislative session ends May 6, and any bills that haven’t cleared both the House and Senate by then are dead.
A report from the Office of the Child Advocate last year found that, in a randomly selected group of 774 homeschooled children, 23% came from households with at least one accepted DCF report. Eight percent lived in families with four such reports or more. Under HB 5468, families with this kind of DCF record would likely fail the cross-check when they first announce an intent to homeschool.
Leeper said the recent deaths of two children have highlighted the need for reform. The goal of HB 5468, she said, is to prevent cases like those while imposing as little as possible on other homeschooling families, most of whom she said are doing everything right.
Homeschooling advocates have made it clear they still felt very much imposed upon.
Republicans on the Education Committee signaled a fight was brewing the day the bill was raised. At an emotional public hearing one month later, hundreds of homeschooling parents and children came to the statehouse to oppose it, with thousands more submitting online testimony.
Leeper attributed much of the opposition to national homeschool groups directing members across the country to rally against the bill. She said she’s had private communications with a number of homeschooling parents who support the bill but are afraid to speak publicly for fear of being alienated.
She also shared screenshots of Facebook posts from homeschooling parents who wrote they had individually submitted “dozens” of testimonies.
The bill cleared the Education Committee in March by a vote of 26-20, with four Democrats and all Republicans against. It then went to the Appropriations Committee, which voted to advance it Friday. There, too, the appetite among Democratic members seemed tepid. Several voted “yes” just to get the bill to the floor, with many saying their final vote would depend on the new amendment.
If HB 5468 does become law, it would mark a major step in what Leeper described as a decades-long effort in Connecticut to stop homeschooling from being used as a smokescreen for abuse.
“The legislature’s been talking about trying to do something to close this sort of hole in our laws for over 20 years, but as we’ve seen this year, it’s politically very tough,” Leeper said.
Even if the bill clears the House, its fate in the Senate is unclear. That chamber had some homeschooling regulations in Senate Bill 6, but the language was stripped out of the bill by the Appropriations Committee on Monday. Senator Eric Berthel, R-Watertown, said he was glad about that change.
“The consideration of any new or further regulation of homeschooling deserves much more scrutiny and input from the affected families,” Berthel said after the vote on SB 6.
Berthel also voted against HB 5468 on Friday — as did Appropriations co-Chair Cathy Osten, D-Sprague. Osten declined to comment on her vote.
It remains to be seen if Democratic leaders will call HB 5468 when the House meets next week.
