Dear Senator Bragdon,

I am writing to you again to explain more about the wording in the currently law RSA 193-A:5 I, which has been struck out in the original bill, as I feel I may not have been as clear about that section as I could have.  As is found in the original bill:

2 Home Education; Notification and Other Procedural Requirements. Amend RSA 193-A:5, I-II to read as follows:

I. Any parent commencing a home education program for a child, for a child who withdraws from a public school, or for a child who moves into a school district shall notify the commissioner of education, resident district superintendent, or principal of a nonpublic school of such within 30 days. [Subject to the provisions of RSA 193-A:7, I, The commissioner of education shall acknowledge in writing that the parent shall be permitted to initiate a home education program for a child enrolled in a public or nonpublic school if the program meets the minimum definitional and educational requirements as provided in RSA 193-A:4, I and paragraph II of this section.]

If you read through section I, you will see that there is some discussion of the case where a parent withdraws a child from public school or non-public school to start a home education program.  The struck out section, to my understanding, was put into the current law for the case when the commissioner of education had to get involved in a dispute between the school and the parent withdrawing their child.  This provision is in place to gracefully analyze the situation rather than getting DCYS involved, and potentially putting a family and their children through the trauma of an unnecessary DCYS involvement.  This would give the commissioner the opportunity to communicate to the PA that it was okay for a parent to withdraw their child and start a home education program, in a situation where the superintendent did not understand that this was a legal to do.  However, if there were more issues involved, and the commissioner decided to withhold from acknowledging the notification, then RSA 193-A:7 would be followed and a hearing with an unbiased hearing officer would continue.  Either this language needs to be made more clear as to its intent, or kept in to protect homeschoolers who may run into such an issue.  I believe that it is important to ensure that even one family must not have endure the trauma of DCYS knocking at the door, unnecessarily, which is why this language had been put in place when the homeschool law was initially written.

Thank you for your consideration,

Christine Mukai
Amherst NH