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Legislative Update: April 2018

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On Tuesday, I was in Frankfort, Kentucky with CHEK Board Members, a local support group leader, and our local affiliated attorney, A.C. Donahue, to meet with the Legislative Research Commission.
The LRC has received a request from at least one legislator to review the homeschool laws of Kentucky and the surrounding states. While the LRC stated that they don’t have a particular agenda, it appears clear that this review of Kentucky homeschool law is related to House Bill 574 that Rep. Harris introduced earlier this year. As you remember, that bill would have dramatically changed the homeschool law in Kentucky.
In their review of state law, the LRC reached out to CHEK and asked them to present information about homeschooling. CHEK in turn invited us to be involved in the meeting along with Mr. Donahue and a local homeschool leader.
The meeting lasted nearly 3 hours and we all were able to provide plenty of information to give the LRC an accurate picture of the status of homeschooling in Kentucky. Given the concern that Kentucky law is too lenient (this is likely the opinion of those requesting that the LRC study homeschooling), I was able to provide information about the surrounding states. I pointed out that in the seven states around Kentucky each one has at least one option for parents to educate their children at home that is less restrictive than Kentucky.
We (HSLDA/CHEK) will continue to be involved in this study to protect homeschooling as we know it in Kentucky. It is my opinion that without CHEK’s presence in Kentucky it is very possible that this opportunity to provide accurate information to the LRC would not have been possible. In fact, we were told at the meeting that the LRC was primarily gathering information from Google and the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) a division of the U.S. Department of Education. While the IES does have some information on homeschooling, it is often out-of-date. Weeding through Google to find accurate information from sources that don’t have a hidden agenda can be difficult. If you don’t already support CHEK, please do so now! They are on the front lines of helping educate and protect homeschooling in Kentucky.
HSLDA Attorney, T.J. Schmidt

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