This web page is to help homeschool families track the progress of the 2009 Home School Mandate Reduction Bill (SF846/HF1037) introduced by Senator Gen Olson and Representative Marsha Swails. Below is a link to the actual Senate web site page for SF846 which is a good portal into tracking the official progress of the bill through the Legislature:
https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us
Click here if you want a general summary of the legislation as it was introduced on February 19 2009.
The following is a progress report from MACHE board member John Tuma on the progress of the legislation.
First the good news, there were absolutely no changes in the law affecting our home school freedom. Of course the bad news is we were actually working to expand our freedom this year.
The 2009 Legislative Session should wrap up Monday, May 18, and it appears there will be no special session thanks to the strong leadership of Governor Tim Pawlenty. The final negotiations have been very hostile between the DFL leadership and the Governor. The Governor has taken the unprecedented step of signing all the bills, but then using his authority to cancel appropriations if they do not lead to a balanced budget. The largest areas in the state budget that these cancel appropriations will occur is in the education and welfare budgets.
There was a great deal of tension in the negotiations around the education bill. As a result, the final negotiations broke down and many areas of reform supported by the Governor, the more conservative Senate, and the more liberal House were left out of the bill. Included in the many reforms left at the curb was our Homeschool Mandate Reduction legislation. Sen. Gen Olson, our champion and Senate chief author, served on the conference committee that negotiated the final provisions that went into the Omnibus K-12 Education Bill. She said that the final package was a very big disappointment for many because of missed opportunities for real reform. The Governor only signed the bill because he wanted avoid a special session and government shutdown.
The good news is that our strategy of getting these reform provisions in the hands of homeschool friendly authors worked to our advantage. This allowed us to avoid any changes that would have been adverse to homeschooling interests. For example, late in the negotiations for the Omnibus Bill, the House members actually tried to expand test reporting on homeschoolers, but all the hard-working goodwill we developed quickly extinguished this obnoxious effort.
It is disappointing when all your hard work dies at the end of the Session, but it is also not uncommon. It often takes a couple years for a good idea to make it through the Legislature. Because of all our hard work this year, we were able to reach agreements with every one of the potential interest groups and state agencies. Therefore, the homeschool community is well-positioned for the next year's legislative session. We will talk more about possible efforts for next year in the coming months.
Thanks for all your help in preserving homeschooling freedom in Minnesota.
Education Conference Committee Waiting to Act.
The first week of May saw the House and Senate conference committee members start their work on the Omnibus Education Finance bills (SF1328/HF2). The committee heard the Homeschool Mandate Reduction provisions on Monday. Sen. Gen Olson was able to work out a very reasonable compromise with the Ramsey County Attorney's office. They were the last ones objecting to the homeschool provisions. We simply clarified when documents need to be made available to the county attorneys when there is a truancy diversion program in existence as there is in Ramsey County. It is a good compromise which will benefit both traditional homeschoolers and the prosecutors.
The conference committee has not yet accepted the homeschool language, but they are waiting on bigger budget and tax issues to be resolved before they can effectively work on the education budget. Until this committee has a budget target they will likely not do anything with regards to the many different policy provisions in their bill. The homeschooling language is only a small provision included with many different policy initiatives in the bill. The legislative session ends on May 18. Therefore, things will pick up during the week of May 11 as the legislature races to a finish.
Fortunately, Sen. Gen Olson is one of the 10 members of this major conference committee and has been a stalwart defender of our position. The senators are also strongly behind these provisions. Therefore, continue to pray for a positive breakthrough with the House members.
As of April 20th, all of the committees in both the House and Senate completed their work on the Omnibus Education Finance bills. SF1328/HF2 is the number of the omnibus bill. These are major bills several hundred pages long. We are fortunate that portions of the original homeschool mandate provisions have become a small part of the bill. Little has changed from the original committee actions noted below. The Senate has language repealing the superintendent's authority to visit a homeschool or access family records, limits the superintendent's oversight of the testing, requires reporting only once when homeschooling begins and repeals the report card and calendar requirements. The Senate bill also eliminates homeschool participation in the nonpublic pupil aid for textbooks, health services and guidance counseling. The House bill has none of these provisions.
Both the House and Senate bills have identical language regarding immunization reporting only twice when the child age 7 and seventh grade, allowing the parents to certify the child is homeschooled for driver's education as opposed to having to ask the superintendent, and allowing the parents to provide certificates of employment for children ages 14 and 15 without the need for superintendent approval. Typically if provisions are identical in bills when they go to conference committees, they are quickly adopted. Therefore, there's a good chance that these provisions will pass this session. We still have significant work to do if we will be successful in adopting any of the Senate language which has the bulk of the freedom from excessive government oversight. Therefore, anticipate a call to action soon as we head toward the conference committee. It is in the conference committees that the House and Senate work out their differences. Because we are part of a very large bill, we are only a small difference they need to work out. This will give us a chance to work out our differences with the House members on the conference committee without any attempt to create more mandates simply because they have bigger issues to work on.
The House K-12 Education Policy and Oversight Committee put together its omnibus education policy bill this Wednesday and Thursday, March 25 and 26. The good news is three of the homeschool mandate reduction proposals made it into that bill. The three provisions are:
1. Reducing the immunization reportings to only twice (as seven years old and seventh-grade), 2. Eliminating the requirement to ask your superintendent for a letter to participate in parent-taught drivers� education, and 3. Eliminating the requirement to ask your superintendent for an employment certificate if your child works during school hours.
The bad news is the major bulk of the paperwork reduction was not included. Provisions not included from our bill were the reductions in reporting only once with removal of the report card and calendar requirements, the elimination of superintendent visits and elimination of the requirement of asking the superintendent to approve the choice of test. Even though they did not include these provisions, the committee did not try to add any new mandates on our bill and they did not recommend that nonpublic pupil aid for homeschool families be eliminated. Given our reception in the House Committee a couple of weeks ago, this is a pretty fair outcome.
For those of you who want to keep track of the progress of the omnibus education policy bill its number is HF1179. The homeschool mandate reduction provisions will be found in Article 2. The actual language will probably not be up on the Web until next week.
The homeschool mandates bill had its hearing in the House Education Committee on Thursday, March 12. The bill was amended with the exact same language as the Senate that we support. Therefore, as the bill sits in both the House and Senate, families would only report when they first start homeschooling and if they move. No report cards. We still have to do annual testing. The ACT and SAT would now qualify for the test, but the state public school testing is not included as an option. Homeschool students entering public school to get a diploma will be responsible for providing test scores and documentation in order to appropriately place the student. This is essentially existing law, but it is now clarified in statute.
The good news is the bill passed unanimously on a voice vote; the bill will now go to the Education Finance Committee. The bad news is there were several tough questions on the lack of providing testing results and the limited disclosure. Rep. Swails was informed by several members on the committee after the hearing that they have problems with the bill. Although they voted for the bill, they know it has to go through the Education Finance Committee to succeed, and if they are not comfortable with the bill by then, it will probably not get a hearing.
The legislative process is always very challenging, and we have our work cut out for us to convince these members that this is a consensus bill worked out with all of the different educational interests to improve the reporting system. Please continue to pray for wisdom and patience for our authors. God is still in control and sovereign regardless of who controls a little committee in this little state on this little planet in His huge galaxy which He created.
The Homeschool Mandate Reduction bill had its first hearing in the Senate education policy committee on Tuesday, March 11. The chief author, Sen. Gen Olson, did a fabulous job. There was about a half hour of testimony and questions; most of the senators were there. We found out afterwards they were all there for the next bill on the agenda which was far more controversial. We were actually originally scheduled to be second on the agenda, but the chairman wanted to move our bill first because it was not controversial. This was a huge blessing because it allowed all the committee members to hear our bill and recognize that it was truly a consensus effort.
Most of the questions from the committee members on the bill were regarding the driver's education provisions. Fortunately, there was a technical drafting mistake in the driver's education language, and this allowed the Department of Public Safety to come to the stand and make the technical changes. Deb Carlson of the Department praised the homeschoolers� willingness to work with her and this helped alleviate any concerns the committee members were expressing.
The rest of the questions were all inquisitive and positive. There were many positive comments about the overall success of home education and the more cooperative relationship that now exists between homeschoolers and the public schools. The senators recognized that the world is changing from a regulatory model to a cooperative one.
The county attorneys did not like our section 1 which would have clarified the withdrawal of students under the age of seven. Therefore, Sen. Olson had that section deleted. We think they don't understand that this change would actually have helped them, but we did not want to hold the bill up. Actually the existing law does no harm, and we can live with it. It showed the committee that we are willing to work with all interested parties and remove any objectionable provisions. Therefore, we gave up something that didn't even help us and gained good will.
The only other significant can change was clarifying that when a former homeschool student enrolls in public school with the intent of receiving a public school diploma, the districts can set up policies of what documentation the families must provide so that the student can be appropriately placed. This is essentially the law now, but the school boards wanted to make it clear in statute; a fair compromise to reduce the paperwork.
The bill passed unanimously on a voice vote. There were no requests from any other committee to see the bill. Therefore, it will only need to go to the Senate Finance Committee before it heads to the Senate floor for a final vote.