02/21/2023
Time to take action! Please follow the below recommendation of CHEWV. Thank you CHEWV for keeping us aware and advocating on our behalf!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=610978314374536&id=100063871170169&sfnsn=mo&mibextid=RUbZ1f
š„š²š“š®šæš±š¶š»š“ šš šÆš°š¬š“
Thanks to everyone who has been praying for the billās demise. Weāve made much progress on that front, but over the next 1-2 days, House members will be deciding exactly how to handle the bill ā whether to vote it down, try to fix it, or table it. We are asking that you contact Delegate Joe Ellington (the House Education committee chair), the majority leader Eric Householder, as well as your local delegate: about the bill as soon as possible: via email, telephone, or in person. Ask them to kill HB 3408 because it is a poorly written bill with serious negative consequences for West Virginia homeschool families.
When communicating with these lawmakers, please remember that they have historically been very supportive of homeschooling. These delegates are not enemies of homeschooling, yet this is a bad bill that has surfaced, passed through committee, and now needs to be stopped.
So that you can develop your own arguments, more information about HB 3408 follows:
Reportedly, the purpose of HB 3408 is to clarify that students who are educated under the HOPE scholarship program have the same legal rights as traditional homeschool students. This would include things such as legal recognition of the diploma and PROMISE scholarship eligibility. CHEWV has no problem with such legal fairness. However, the trouble with the bill is that it places all students who āreceive instruction in their homeā into one legal category in the state code. There are two key problems with this approach, and BOTH need to be addressed.
While the bill makes a clear separation between homeschoolers and students in micro-schools or learning pods, it removes the distinction between traditional homeschoolers and HOPE scholar students who use an āIndividualized Instructional Programā (IIP). When HOPE was being considered two years ago, CHEWV and other homeschool groups worked hard to maintain this legal distinction so that legal requirements for HOPE scholars were kept entirely separate from traditional homeschoolers. Putting HOPE IIP students in the same legal category as traditional homeschool students would be the first step down a āslippery slopeā to make homeschoolers subject to more government regulation. Though the educational method and setting of both may look very much the same, CHEWV opposes any change in the law that eliminates the legal distinction between privately-funded, traditional homeschoolers and HOPE scholarship IIP students.
HB 3408, as it is currently written, also drastically increases the requirements for traditional homeschoolers by making them subject to the current āOption 1ā requirements (designed for students who have a board-approved teacher come into their home to do the instruction). Specific problems with this are enumerated in CHEWVās previous alert about HB 3408. Bill drafters are aware of these problems and seem willing to fix them. However, the bill is still alive, unchanged, and scheduled for its second reading in tomorrow's House session. Further, even if these particular problems are fixed, thatās not enough. (See the previous paragraph.) HB 3408 may have been well intended, but it is a poorly written bill that needs to be stopped immediately.
