Previous Issue Current Issue Next Issue About Search Archives Advertising VOLUME XX, NUMBER 3 - disclaimer - May / June 2004 FEATURES The Best Preventative Medicine What are mandatory reporters? Quick tickets to a social services investigation DEPARTMENTS Freedom watch Same-sex marriage: Not a tangential battle Across the states About campus "Intelligence" takes on new meaning Active cases Members only Wanted: Words from the wise Around the globe Netherlands victory Canadian Supreme Court affirms parental rights Presidents Page Not in vain ET AL. HSLDA social services contact policy/A plethora of forms HSLDA legal inquiries Prayer & Praise On the other hand: a Contrario Sensu  «   LEGAL/LEGISLATIVE UPDATES   »  ACROSS THE STATES CA · DE · FL · ID · IL · IN · IA · KY · LA · MI · MO · NJ · NM · NY · ND · OH · OR · RI · SC · SD · TN · TX · VT · VA · WA · WV · WI · WY IDAHO Discriminatory bill defeated In February, families achieved a crucial victory when Senator Joe Stegner withdrew a bill from the Idaho Senate that unfairly targeted homeschoolers. Senate Bill 1233 would have made any home educating parent who failed "to place the child in school . . . or to have the child comparably instructed" automatically guilty of a misdemeanor crime. Currently, the law states that if a parent is suspected of failing to provide comparable instruction, proceedings must be brought against the parent under the same act by which the juvenile charges were brought against the child. This system has worked effectively for decades by giving juvenile judges flexibility in working with individual families who are suspected of not educating their children. The somewhat vague term "comparably instructed" also gives homeschool families greater latitude in proving that they are providing their children with an education. Under SB 1233, however, this flexibility would have been eliminated. Parents whose homeschool program was found to be inadequate would have automatically been charged with a misdemeanor crime, even if the educational shortcoming was relatively minor. In addition, SB 1233 discriminated against homeschool families, since all other forms of education—public, private, and parochial school—are expressly exempted from the statute the bill would have modified. Thus, only homeschoolers could have been convicted of failing to provide comparable instruction if the bill had passed. When the Idaho Coalition of Home Educators (ICHE) learned that SB 1233 had been introduced in the senate, it approached the bill's sponsor, Senator Joe Stegner, to work out a compromise bill. The senator refused to negotiate. ICHE and Home School Legal Defense Association responded by sending email alerts to their members, asking them to voice their opposition to the bill. Homeschoolers responded overwhelmingly. In fact, some senate offices received over 600 emails in two weeks from constituents opposing the bill. Senator Stegner finally withdrew SB 1233, and the entire senate concurred. Withdrawing the bill was the "simple recognition that this bill is divisive," said Senator Stegner. "It has generated more animosity than I ever anticipated." Credit goes to the Idaho Coalition of Home Educators for spearheading the opposition, and to HSLDA members who took time out of their busy schedules to contact their senators. — by Christopher J. Klicka