"Home Education"?
NJHA Note from 2007: Still nothing. This is good. Bad bills often die quietly.
UNSCHOOLERS NETWORK 2 Smith Street Farmingdale, NJ 07727 ====================== September 20, 2004 ====================== Hi everybody,
First: A1918 has not come up on the Education Committee agenda yet. You will get a notice as soon as we hear anything about that. We all need to keep an alert stance to be ready in case action is needed on this one. Right now, there's nothing we can do but wait.
Second: Another bill of concern to homeschoolers has surfaced. Some of you may have already read about it online.
A3185 says: "Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, any child under the care, custody or supervision of the Division of Youth and Family Services, including a child placed in a resource family home or in a kinship care home, shall not be homeschooled and shall be enrolled in a public or nonpublic school".
This bill obviously is aimed at "fixing" the situation that caused all of this controversy in the first place; a DYFS family was found to be neglecting children who were supposedly being home schooled. The logic behind it says this won't happen again if we don't allow these children to be home schooled. While we don't agree with that at all, it may sound very reasonable to Assemblymen and women who will be asked to vote on it.
This morning there was a task force conference call to discuss this bill. (A3185) The task force members are in agreement that we should fight it. I spoke with some families at our conference on Saturday who are concerned and agree we all need to get behind opposing it. It may not affect the majority of home schoolers, but the basic premise is wrong and holds dangers for us all in the long run.
This bill, unlike A1918, has several co-sponsors and may have some general backing as a "cure" for the situation. It would demonstrate that they have done SOMETHING about it. This bill may not be easy to defeat, but we see a general agreement that we have to try.
Some of the terms used in the the bill need to be better understood, as well as some of the DYFS procedures now in effect. The task force is in an information-gathering stage, working to understand all of the implications of the bill. We plan to (soon) develop a recommended response to the bill based on what we learn. We don't have any recommendations for action right now, but will have in the near future.
Meanwhile, I'd like to hear from families who would be affected by this bill. Your input and experience is needed to gain insight into how this would affect your family and the children. The more we know, the smarter our response will be. Thanks.
Nancy Plent Unschoolers Network
Comments and suggestions welcomed!
Write to:
NJ Homeschool Association
P.O.Box 1386
Medford, NJ 08055
njha@geocities.com
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