This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
A major update to the state’s home education law would eliminate nearly all requirements currently in place for families who home-school their children.
The proposed legislation, dubbed the Home Education Freedom Act, would make New Hampshire one of the least regulated states in the country, according to Republican Rep. Kristin Noble, the prime sponsor of the bill.
“This historic amendment would transform New Hampshire from a moderately regulated state to effectively the #1 state in America for home-school freedom,” Noble wrote in a mass email this week sent by the Committee to Elect House Republicans.
Under the bill, families would no longer need to notify their child’s school district, public school or the Department of Education upon commencing a home education program, unless they intend to continue using public school resources.
The bill would also eliminate the requirements in the current law for families to maintain portfolios of their child’s work, obtain annual academic evaluations and submit a letter or certificate to the Department of Education when their child completes high school.
It would be the most significant change to the home education law since at least 2012. The state established the current legal framework in 1990.
Nashua resident Doris Hohensee, who has been active in the home education community for decades, said the bill would be “a big and a good change” that would serve as a paradigm shift, eliminating the presumption that families are acting in bad faith.
“It’s flipping the tables,” she said. “We’re assumed innocent for the first time.”
The bill, which has been in the works over the last few months, has prompted significant discussion — and some disagreement — within New Hampshire’s home education community. A hearing scheduled for Friday is expected be well attended.
While most home educators support rolling back requirements, some have expressed worry about doing away with documentation that remains valuable to protect against claims of education neglect.
“Removing paperwork requirements is great, but unless parents have some legally recognized proof option, removing notifications is a disaster,” Amanda Weeden, a founding member of a prominent home education group in the state, wrote on social media Tuesday.
Weeden indicated that her organization, Granite State Home Educators, had proposed a modification, though she did not respond to requests for comment about her position.
Hohensee said that allegations of educational neglect within the home-school community are uncommon. But, she said, “when it happens, it can be very problematic.”
“I think there’s some people that are afraid that they need more reassurances that they won’t be personally attacked by a truant charge or an educational neglect charge,” she said. “They’re used to having all of these little government certificates and artifacts saying, ‘You’re a good citizen; you’re still a good citizen,’ and they’re afraid to go without those certificates.”
The bill would also clarify that families who home-school their children under the Education Freedom Account program are distinct from home educating families under the law. The potential overlap has been a significant point of contention in the homeschooling community in recent years, primarily because some home educators worry that legislative requirements placed on Education Freedom Account families could encroach on their independence.
The bill would make tracking trends in home education impossible. Already, the state has no record of how many home educating students there are — in part because the notification requirement at the conclusion of a home education program is followed only sparingly, according to a Department of Education administrator.
In recent years, roughly 3,000 new students have commenced home education programs annually, according to data from the department. The new law would eliminate the notification requirement.
Hohensee said critics of the deregulation effort “are not assuming goodwill on the part of the parent.”
“You want laws that are as lenient as possible, so you can build good relationships with the service providers in your public school,” she added. “If there’s not the hostility or the fear between the two, you can work a lot more collaboratively.”
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