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Legislative Alert: HB 574 Aggressive Encroachment on Private Home Education

By DBolin

HB574, an act relating to homeschool, was submitted to the House on February 27 by Representative Chris Harris, and is currently awaiting discussion in the House Education Committee. We have not seen a bill that so aggressively attacks our freedom to home educate in more than eight years. If this bill became law, it would drastically transform the face of private home education in Kentucky. It is CHEK’s stance that bills, such as these, are unnecessary and ultimately harmful to homeschoolers as they further increase the state's control of the education and upbringing of our children. CHEK is actively communicating our concerns to the House Education Committee. We encourage you to contact your legislators to let them know your concerns for HB 574.

If this proposed bill became law, it would:
  1. Create a legal definition of homeschool in Kentucky.
  2. Require parents to submit and affidavit to the Kentucky Department of Education, on an annual basis, verifying each child completed 1,062 hours of academic instruction.
  3. Require parents to submit, on an annual basis, a portfolio of sample work completed by each child.
  4. Empower the Department of Education to evaluate every portfolio to determine if students have achieved adequate academic growth throughout the year. The standard to demonstrate academic progress is subjective and would be completely up to the Department.
  5. Require the Department of Education to create a plan for all students that have not met the academic growth standard, therefore, parents would be required to follow the remediation plan of the Department of Education, if they wish to continue teaching each child at home.
  6. Require the establishment of an administrative procedure to terminate the student enrollment in a private homeschool, if a child has not obtained adequate academic growth in 24 months.
  7. Require parents to be supervised by a certified teacher until adequate academic growth is established.
  8. Give full authority to the Department of Education to promulgate these regulations.
We know you value your freedom to home educate your children in this Commonwealth.  Take a few minutes to communicate this to your Representative. 

You can call the legislative message line: 1-800-372-7181, and ask that your message be given to your Representative as well as Representative Chris Harris.  The TTY message line is 1-800-896-0305. If you have questions, please, direct them to CHEK at info@chek.org.

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