Attorney Deborah G. Stevenson

Executive Director

P.O. Box 704 , Southbury, CT 06488

02/15/08

Great News For CT Parents!

The Parents Rights Bill Regarding Withdrawal from Public School Will Finally Have A Public Hearing!

Thanks to the support of State Senator Meyer and State Representative Anne Ruwet of the Select Committee on Children, the Parents Rights Bill proposed by Representative Arthur O'Neill has been raised in the Childrens Committee and will finally have a public hearing on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. in Room 2B of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.

We urge all parents, and those interested in preserving a parents right to withdraw their child from public school, to attend this public hearing! We applaud the Childrens Committee in doing what the Education Committee seems to have been afraid or unwilling, to do in the past 3 years.

Even though you might have already come up to Hartford, which was crucial and led to our getting this public hearing that we have been waiting for three years to obtain, we need you to come up again one more time to finally make your voices heard, and have your comments placed in the public record. It would be wonderful to have every homeschooling support group represented in this public hearing. Legislators need to be educated as to the positive aspect of homeschooling. We have to let them know that we don't need any other legislation, and that parents need the ability to take their children out of public school without fear or consequence of being reported to DCF.

The bill is named "AN ACT CONCERNING THE WITHDRAWAL OF A CHILD FROM ENROLLMENT IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL" and the bill number is Senate Bill 162. (http://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&bill_num=SB00162 )

It simply says that when a parent sends a letter to the school district withdrawing their child from the public school, that the public school must accept the letter and immediately consider the child withdrawn from enrollment.

Why the need for this bill? Among other things, what has been happening is that the school districts have been refusing to acknowledge notification by parents of their children's withdrawal, keeping the children "on the enrollment books", then considering the children truant and reporting the parents to DCF.

Many parents from school districts throughout the state have the opportunity now to attend this hearing and tell of their successes with homeschooling after withdrawing their children from public school, as well as tell their stories of how they were abused by their school districts and either threatened or falsely reported to DCF. All of the families that have had to deal with these DCF reports, and that Attorney Deborah Stevenson of National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD) has dealt with, subsequently were either reversed or withdrawn, but only after the families had to go through tremendous anxiety and costly litigation. Government abuse of authority is becoming more prevalent, and the government should not be allowed to threaten parents with loss of custody of their children simply when parents choose to do what they are allowed by law (CGS 10-184) to do, namely be in charge of their children's education.

This piece of legislation will save hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary litigation for school districts and parents, and will also save hundreds of thousands of dollars in costly and unwarranted DCF investigations.

If you are interested in testifying in support of this bill here is a good video to watch about how to testify if you haven't done it before (mms://ctnv1.ctn.state.ct.us/civics/Joining%20the%20Debate.wmv).

Sign up to testify is at 8:00 am in the Legislative Office Building in Room 2B. The Committee is requesting that you bring 50 copies of your testimony.

We are encouraging parents to call their legislators to have them testify on that day too. So far, this legislation has received positive bi-partisan support. Again, we applaud the Childrens Committee for addressing this very important issue regarding parents and the education of their children.

If you have any questions about this bill or this hearing please contact Deborah Stevenson (860-354-3590) or Judy Aron (860-523-7257).