Homeschool parents in Wyoming are closer to having more autonomy over what they teach their kids is sailing through the state Legislature, advancing Wednesday to the Senate floor with a recommendation it pass.
The Homeschool Freedom Act that removes requirements from a Wyoming statute for homeschooling parents to submit their planned curriculum to the local school board went to the Senate floor with a recommendation that it pass.
The Wyoming Senate Education Committee voted 4-0 to move House Bill46 — aka the “Homeschool Freedom Act” — out of committee without any amendments.
The legislation removes requirements that homeschool parents submit their planned curricula to local school boards.
Rep. Tomi Strock, R-Douglas, who sponsored the bill in the House, appeared before the Senate committee to introduce the bill and testify in support of the Act. She called the current statute language requiring parents to submit their homeschool curriculum to their local school district “an overreach.”
“There are 11 states that have never required this kind of notification, including Idaho, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, and Wyoming would be joining them,” she said. “Importantly, this bill would not change the way homeschool children participate in public school sports and activities, as Wyoming law already protects access of homeschoolers to these activities.”
Committee member Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, questioned whether the 11 states have just a notification requirement where parents tell the district they are homeschooling and then that is the end of any engagement with the district.
Strock said she did not know of any.
“It’s just this ‘intending’ thing,” Strock said. “They’re able to just go about being a parent. And you know, I think sometimes we forget who owns these children. It’s not the government, it is the parents, and so it gives them that freedom to parent and to educate as they like.”
Rothfuss said he thought there still is a requirement in another part of theWyoming’s education statute to provide notification, even if parents did not have to provide proof of curriculum.
Homeschool Legal Defense Association Senior Counsel Will Estrada testified that the change would mean that parents who do not have children in public schools would not have to provide notification or curriculum to the school district, but if they remove a child from the district, there would still be a notification needed.
‘Good For Freedom’
“HB 46 as passed by the House is good for freedom,” he said. “It’s precious, Wyoming has led in freedom. You had the bills last year with school choice, you have the strong fundamental parental rights statute codified in Wyoming statute.
“This bill would continue to send a message making Wyoming the 12th state where there’s no requirement that families file with the school district.”
He asked the committee to approve the bill.
Representatives from the Wyoming Department of Education and Wyoming Association of School Administrators also gave their support for the legislation.
“The idea of homeschooling parents just turning their curriculum into us and us having to say that they’re OK … we do nothing with evaluating them or anything like that,” said Boyd Brown, executive director of the association. “It’s very confusing to board members when they first come onto the board and they ask you, ‘Why do we get those?’”
Wyoming Department of Family Services Director Korin Schmidt told the panel that when the department receives a complaint about educational neglect, being able to contact the school district to see if the family involved are known homeschoolers is helpful. She said if the “tool is no longer there” they would “work around it and do our investigations.”
Several Wyoming homeschool parents testified in favor of the legislation.
Jordan Emerson, a pastor of a Cheyenne church, told the senators that his family moved to Wyoming because they wanted a state “that respects our God-given rights to self-govern and our right to raise in school our daughters, our children, in state that respects our God-ordained institution as a family.”
He read the panel a passage from 1 Peter in the Bible that defines the governmental role as to protect the rights of people to “self-govern” and to punish those “who will not govern themselves under what is good, true, and virtuous as designed by God.”
President of Homeschool Wyoming Brenna Lowry characterized the current statute as “just a hoop to jump through” that “really serves no purpose.” She said members of her association have had school boards respond in various ways to parent curriculum submissions that often leads to confusion for parents.
Lowry also told the board that in the past five school years, the association has seen a doubling of the number of homeschoolers in the state. She estimated the current number at between 5,000 and 6,000 families.
The Homeschool Freedom Act was sent to the Senate on a 54-6 approval vote by the House.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
