The right to educate your child as YOU SEE FIT is one of the most basic rights protected in our US and NH Constitutions. To think the state would try to control this is beyond imagination.
HB 1571 will have a public hearing scheduled for 17th of April a little after 1:00 PM before the Senate Education Committee. There is work to be done in preparation for this public hearing.
Here are the Senate Education Committee members:
James Forsythe
james.forsythe@leg.state.nh.us
271-3096
Molly Kelly
molly.kelly@leg.state.nh.us
271-2166
357-5118
Sharon Carson
Sharon.Carson@leg.state.nh.us
271-2674
Russell Prescott
represcott@represcott.com
271-3074
642-4243
Nancy Stiles
nancy.stiles@leg.state.nh.us
271-6933
Sen. Forsythe and Sen. Prescott will support HB 1571; Sen. Kelly will most likely oppose it. The two senators who need to be persuaded are Sen. Carson (Londonderry) and Sen. Stiles (Hampton).
Please contact Sen. Carson and Sen. Stiles and ask for their support of HB 1571. This is especially important if you are a constituent of one of these senators; constituents get twice the attention that a non-constituent does.
HB 1571 eliminates the burden on school districts to collect and process annual evaluations, WITHOUT eliminating the requirement that all homeschooled students obtain an annual evaluation.
HB 1571 assures the privacy rights of home schooled students are respected; no other private school students are required to submit annual evaluations to the district.
HB 1571 modifies RSA 193-A, the home education law, to respect parental rights in education. Parents are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty of educational neglect. Probation and termination procedures will be eliminated from statute. Given that 71% of all school districts are in need of improvement and none of those schools are being shut down, it’s only equitable that home education programs are not terminated when a home education child might be in need of improvement.
HB 1571 will allow parents and public school teachers to work together in the best interests of the child without fear of retribution should a child need remedial help.