CONCORD - Yesterday the Senate Education committee in an executive session voted 4-1 to recommend HB406 Ought to Pass with Amendment. HB406 seeks to amend RSA 193-A,the home education law, to remove the requirement that homeschoolers submit a description of their curriculum at the time of notification of their intent to homeschool. The text of amendment 2005-1824s can be found at this location.

The discussion began by summarizing that a problem that had occurred in June of 2005, when the amendment published in the Senate Calendar did not reflect the discussion and vote of the Senate Education Committee on June 2nd. The Senate voted down the published amendment, then rereferred the bill to the committee. Further discussion revealed that the compromise discussed at the earlier executive session still had support. The compromise was between those who favored total repeal of the requirement for homeschoolers to submit a description of a curriculum annually, and those wished to see it continue. The proposed solution was to only require homeschoolers to submit a curriculum with the first letter of intent.

The minority vote was cast by Senator Bragdon, who is ironically the official sponsor of the amendment. Amendment 1824s was prepared by Senator Bragdon on June 7, 2005, as a contingency if he could not persuade the Senate when it met on June 9, 2005 to pass HB406 unamended, as sent to them by the House. During executive session, Senator Bragdon "renounced" ownership of the amendment. The motion to recommend the amendment actually came from Senator Estabrook and was seconded by Senator Foster. Senators Johnson and Green concurred.

Copies of the latest amendment, along with copies of the bill as passed by the House, the current home education law, and the current home education regulations were passed out at the Home Education Advisory Council meeting later that afternoon. HEAC is created by RSA 193-A:10 to advise the Commissioner and Department of Education on matters pertaining to home education. There was not a quorum of members present, so no official meeting was held, but members stayed to meet informally, since ten homeschoolers had shown up to be present at the meeting. As council and audience members reveiwed the amendment, it became clear that the language did not match the policy changes that were discussed at the Senate Education Committee executive session earlier that day. If adopted, the amendment would require all homeschoolers to submit a curriculum to the Department of Education next year. The DOE is not set up to handle review of the approximately 4,000 curriculum descriptions that would likely result from this requirement. It also introduces the use of the word "permit" in the language describing the method of acknowledging a home education program, a word choice not likely to be favored by many homeschoolers. Finally, since it replaces everything after the enacting clause (a technique commonly referred to as "gutting the bill"), it removes the language passed by the House that would have removed a requirement that homeschooling parents provide "planned and supervised instructional and related eduational activities". The consensus of those present at the meeting was that both the language of the amendment and the intended policy changes would be opposed by many homeschoolers. Angie Lebel, the recording secretary, and the Program Assistant in charge of administering home education programs would be passing along the information and her concerns to Sarah Browning, DOE Legislative Liason. Dean Michener, HEAC representative for the NH School Boards Association, and Associate Director of that organization, would be approaching Senator Bragdon to let him know of the discrepancies.

Chris Hamilton
Beaver Lodge Homeschool