Author: Melody Sheppard

Are a crazy schedule and a hostile but enticing culture making it hard to stay connected to your kids?

Join families from across the country for the Noah Conference in Cincinnati on August 19 & 20 — just a short drive from the new life-size Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum. Based on lessons from the life of Noah, the Noah Conference will prepare you to Engage your kids, Disciple them in an ungodly generation, Launch them into life as ambassadors of Jesus Christ!

Watch the Noah Conference Trailer

Friends of CHEWV registering by June 15th will receive a special discount of over 30% off full-price admission. (Use discount code CHEWV)

Noah Conference Speakers

Ken Ham, Kevin Swanson, David & Jason Benham and their father, Flip Benham, Scott Brown, Erik Weir, Steve Riddell, Dave Tucker, and more!

Event Features

• LifeLaunch Track: How to launch into life NOW with clear vision, through one-on-one mentoring relationships and real-life application.
• Dinner with the Benhams: Share a mouth-watering barbecue dinner with the Benhams as they share how they were prepared to thrive like Daniel in today’s Babylon.
• Creation Museum: Attend the Creation Museum for only $10 per person for a 2-day pass!
• Live Entertainment: Ready for some good old-fashioned toe-tappin’ family fun? Enjoy live music from the award-winning Stockdale Family Band and other musicians.
• Free Pizza Party! Don’t miss out on the Saturday Evening Pizza Party – everyone’s invited!

View the full conference schedule:  Noah Conference Schedule

Pricing

Remember to use coupon code CHEWV and register by June 15th to receive over 30% off!

Individual Tickets: $139 $85 (Includes Ark Encounter Admission*)

Family Tickets: $349 $239 (Includes Ark Encounter Admission*)

* Normal Ark Encounter Pricing: $40/adult & $28/child (ages 5+)

A Brief Overview of the 2016 Legislative Session

HB 4175 created a positive change in the West Virginia homeschool exemption.
Considerable effort was needed to secure passage. HB 4175 was deliberated extensively in both the House and the Senate before the “Modernization Bill” was passed by both Houses and sent to the Governor for his signature.

The Tim Tebow Bill was passed by the Senate early in the session. SB 105 was not taken up in the House because it lacked support in the House Education Committee. Instead, a Resolution was passed by the House Education Committee which called for a study during the Interim session. This study could result in a recommendation that the legislature support the Tim Tebow during the 2017 Regular Session.

HB 4014, the Stop Common Core Bill, was passed on the last day of the session. HB 4014 was a positive step forward by removing West Virginia from the testing consortium which currently governs testing in West Virginia.  The Governor has 15 days in which to decide if he will veto HB 4014.

HB 4012 – The Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed overwhelmingly in the House.  Then on the Senate floor, Senator Palumbo introduced an amendment, supported by the Majority leader Mitch Carmichael, that gutted the legislation. Supporters of Religious Freedoms could no longer support the bill and it was killed. What was learned from this effort will be discussed in a soon-to-be-released report.

The following bills did not gain consideration by a committee in either legislative body.

HB 4215 and SB 316 – Which would remove the GED requirement in order to receive the Promise Scholarship.

SB 292 and HB 4242 – Which would provide for a tax credit for homeschooling educational expenses.

HB 2258- The Parent’s Bill of Rights which would define parental rights as a fundamental right.

Thank you to everyone who communicated with their legislator to encourage passage of these bills supporting our freedoms. Thank you to Mike Donnelly of HSLDA for his tireless efforts and expertise on behalf of homeschooling families.

Thank you to Delegate Brian Kurcaba and Senator Robert Karnes for all their hard work, as well as House Education Chairman Paul Espinosa and Senate Education Chairman Dave Sypolt.

WV homeschooling families have been blessed by the 2016 legislature’s passage of a revised homeschool law.  But many are asking, “What does it all mean?”  We’re in the midst of assessment season, so allow us to share a few details of the revised law:

• The law does not take effect until 90 days after it was passed. It was passed February 23rd, so effective date is May 23, 2016.
• Annual assessments are required of every student annually, exactly as before. And the assessment choices are exactly the same. What is different now?  Assessments will not have to be submitted to the county boards of education every single year, but only for students in designated grades (see below).  Therefore, CHEWV recommends that you continue with the assessment choices you’ve already made for this year.
• The prohibition on parents testing their own children remains in effect until May 23rd, 2016.  After that, administrators must be qualified in accordance with the test’s published guidelines.
• You, the parent, are responsible for keeping complete copies of your child(ren)’s academic assessment(s) on file at home for at least three years.
• Assessments must be turned in by June 30th for students in 3rd, 5th, 8th and 11th grades.  Note that the deadline is exactly as before.
• CHEWV will provide more information about assessments in the coming weeks. For those who test with us, our Report to the Superintendent will reflect the changes.  Our website will help you switch your attention to the stanine score when considering your legal responsibilities.
• And finally, the remediation requirement and the “additional evidence” requirements are still in place – exactly as before!  Those requirements are unrelated to whether you must turn in assessments this year.  If your child does not make acceptable progress this year for the second consecutive year, your must give the county additional evidence of appropriate instruction – regardless of what grade he or she is in.
• For those who may be pulling students out of public or private school, the two-week waiting period will no longer be in place after May 23rd, 2016.  Once these changes go into effect, the notice of intent must still be given to your County Board of Education on or before the date home instruction is to begin.
• HSLDA has confirmed that everyone should submit one more Notice of Intent with the information required in the revised law.  Going forward, the NOI would only be needed for each additional child who is starting to homeschool, or when changes as specified in the law apply.
• The revised law no longer mentions a plan of instruction.

There are other details in the law’s 2016 revisions.  We urge you, first of all, to read the law for yourself, which is your duty and privilege as a citizen.  The actual wording of the law’s changes can be found HERE.

As always, if you have additional questions, please feel free to contact us.  If you are a member of HSLDA, you can get legal interpretation and help there.  Please be patient with us!  Christian Home Educators is working hard to provide accurate information to parents and will continue to update our website over the upcoming weeks to reflect the 2016 changes in the law.

We hope you will rejoice with us in God’s goodness and remember that greater liberty is always accompanied by greater responsibility.  On the one hand, we’re blessed to take advantage of new freedoms where our reporting requirements are concerned.  On the other hand, we must also prepare ourselves to take the responsibility entrusted to us and honorably comply with the changes to the law that God has helped us to achieve.

Note:  This should not be construed to be legal advice.  For legal advice, we recommend membership in the Home School Legal Defense Association.

HB 4175 will be on the Governor’s desk Thursday. We should know by next Wednesday if he is going to approve HB 4175 the Home School Modernization Bill.

Three signatures have to be collected from both the House and the Senate prior to being sent to the Governor and then he will have 5 days to make his decision.

If the bill is approved it will become effective 90 days from when it passed the legislature, not from when it is signed by the Governor. Bill passage was on February 23, which would make the bill effective on May 23, 2016.

If you would like to express your support for HB 4175 contact the Governor:
 Contact Page here!
A simple is all that is needed:  “Please support HB 4175, the Home School Bill.”

On Tuesday, February 23, the West Virginia Legislature sent a homeschool freedom bill for signature to Governor Earl Ray Tomblin.

With Tomblin’s signature, West Virginia will join the ranks of over a dozen states which, in the past decade, have rolled back burdensome regulations on homeschooling families. To see how homeschooling regulation has changed, read this HSLDA article.

Last year Governor Tomblin vetoed a similar bill. In West Virginia, the legislature can override a governor’s veto by a simple majority. However, because the legislature had adjourned, it had no chance to override the governor’s veto—a fact which made the outcome seem like a missed opportunity given the overwhelming majority by which the bill had passed. (This year’s homeschool freedom bill enjoyed similar support, passing 80–18 in the House and 26–6 in the Senate.)

Making changes to a longstanding law requires concentrated effort and support from outside and within the legislature. Senator Robert Karnes and Delegate Brian Kurcaba have been the prime sponsors of this bill since the 2014 session when it was first introduced. Their efforts were supported by state organizations including Christian Home Educators of West Virginia (CHEWV) and West Virginia Home Education Association (WVHEA). HSLDA attorney Michael Donnelly and CHEWV legislative liaison John Carey invested many hours in contacting legislators and shepherding the bill through the various committee processes.

https://youtu.be/QiIOTZn2WH8

Big Step Forward

The new law would improve what is among the most burdensome homeschooling regimes in the country by easing unnecessary bureaucratic requirements on families and school districts.

For example, in West Virginia academic assessments must be submitted annually to the local public school superintendent, but only nine other states require that all homeschool families submit assessments to the authorities. The proposed law would require a family to submit assessments less frequently—only in grades 3, 5, 8 and 11.

Under the proposed law, the annual notice of intent instead would only be submitted upon starting or stopping homeschooling, or if a family moved. The new law would also eliminate what HSLDA has called an unconstitutional 14-day waiting period that parents removing a child from the public schools had to abide by before starting home education. This waiting period has been a burdensome requirement, especially for parents with children having difficulty in the institutional school environment.

The new law would lower the minimum score required to demonstrate adequate progress on standardized tests from the 50th percentile—an unreasonably restrictive score—to around the 23rd percentile. Other states that have minimum test scores set the threshold for acceptable progress in the 13th–30th percentile range.

Due process protections in the new bill would make it harder for school districts to put up roadblocks for parents interested in homeschooling or in harassing those who already are. The proposed law would clarify that homeschoolers are not subject to truancy prosecutions and would also require a superintendent to have probable cause before seeking an order to deny home education.

Making the law simpler will allow families to homeschool with fewer bureaucratic requirements. HSLDA believes that parents are best equipped and empowered to make decisions about how their children will be educated, and this new law takes some big steps in that direction.

Read the final version of HB 4175  HERE.

Mike Donnelly, attorney for HSLDA, has been present at committee meetings involving the passage of HB 4175 the Homeschool Modernization Bill.  Last Thursday the Senate Education Committee briefly discussed the bill in the short time left towards the end of the meeting.  These were Mr. Donnelly’s thoughts on the brief discussion:

I listened with some incredulity as one Democrat legislator (Senator Beach) criticized the bill because it might possibly allow “Hungarian parents who don’t speak English and who aren’t citizens yet” to homeschool?! Senator Romano appeared very skeptical about trusting parents to educate their children without annual state oversight. He even joked—at least I hope he was joking—at one point that maybe homeschooling should be eliminated as an option.

In spite of this rhetoric from opponents of the bill, the main concern for a number of committee members appeared to be a sense of queasiness about not requiring parents to have some kind of public school-approved qualification (e.g. high school diploma or GED) in order to be able to home educate their own children.

While it is true that most parents do have a state-issued high school diploma or the equivalent, there are many who do not—and as we graduate more homeschoolers (who don’t have state-issued diplomas) that number is increasing. These parents also include Amish parents who may not have state-issued diploma due to religious reasons or even parents who have previously dropped out of high school but have still gone on to gain significant life experience; neither of these groups should be automatically barred from homeschooling just because they lack a state-issued high school diploma.

West Virginia is one of only eight states that requires all parents to have a state-issued diploma or equivalent in order to exercise the fundamental constitutional right to direct the education of their children by homeschooling.

I am working with concerned members of the committee to find a solution that addresses these concerns but recognizes that lacking a state-issued high school graduation credential shouldn’t be an automatic and absolute bar to home education.

Unfortunately, the committee adjourned without a final decision as amendments were being offered to the bill.  It is expected that the committee will consider the bill again at the next meeting.  I plan to be there again to encourage the committee to pass the bill.

HB 4175 is on the Senate Education Committee agenda Feb. 16 at 2:00 p.m.  Now is the time to contact the senators on this committee and give your testimony that homeschooling in the Mountain State is a legitimate and successful option for thousands of students.

If you can, please take a moment to thank Senator David Sypolt, the committee chairman, for moving the bill through the committee as expeditiously as the process allows.

Committee Chairman: dave.sypolt@wvsenate.gov;

Other Members of the committee:
donnaboley@suddenlink.net;
bob.beach@wvsenate.gov;
Mitch.Carmichael@wvsenate.gov;
sue.cline@wvsenate.gov;
robert.karnes@wvsenate.gov;
william.laird@wvsenate.gov;
mike.hall@wvsenate.gov;
robert.plymale@wvsenate.gov;
mike.romano@wvsenate.gov;
ron.stollings@wvsenate.gov;
drtomtakubo@gmail.com;
charles.trump@wvsenate.gov;
john.unger@wvsenate.gov

Please send them this message in your own words:

Dear Senator,

I am asking you to pass H.B. 4175 out of the Education Committee without further amendment. H.B. 4175 makes common-sense reforms to West Virginia’s antiquated homeschool law by eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy faced by families as well as school districts. Homeschooling parents have demonstrated that they are able to produce exceptional academic and social results without state oversight.  More than a dozen other states have passed similar legislation recognizing home education achievement over the past 30 years.

I understand that some members of the committee have raised concerns about removing the requirement that a parent have a high school diploma or GED.  West Virginia is one of only eight states that requires a parent to show a state-issued credential in order to exercise their fundamental constitutional rights. There are some parents, such as those who were homeschooled in West Virginia or in other states, Amish families, and those who chose to drop out of school but have gone on to gain sufficient life experience and knowledge, who should not be automatically and absolutely barred from home education. Research and practical experience over the decades have shown that that there is virtually no relation to how well a homeschooled student performs and the parents’ education or credentials.

West Virginia parents can and should be trusted to make educational decisions for their children without unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles.  H.B. 4175 is step in that direction. Please vote for H.B. 4175 without further substantive amendment.  Thank you for your service to the families of West Virginia.

For further background of this bill, please see other News Articles on the CHEWV website which explain the background of this bill.