Wisconsin
Waukesha Battles Curfew Ordinance
Cities all across America are drafting “daytime curfews” which make it a crime to be a child in a public place. Wisconsin has been particularly plagued with these local ordinances, and home schoolers have been on the front lines, battling against them in Sheboygan, Brown County, and other jurisdictions. Local home schoolers in Waukesha deserve special commendation for their labor on the front lines of liberty.
In November 1998, a Waukesha aldermen called Home School Legal Defense Association to warn us that the town’s License and Ordinance Committee would be working on a truancy ordinance. The Waukesha Public Schools had made a formal request that the city council draft a daytime curfew. HSLDA promptly wrote a letter to the committee and to the city attorney, and asked home schooling families in Waukesha to attend the committee meeting at City Hall.
When Waukesha home schoolers got to the License and Ordinance meeting on November 30, they discovered the truancy ordinance had already passed through that committee and had been forwarded to the city attorney’s office. Instead of giving up, the local families got organized. On December 14, fifteen home schoolers attended another meeting of the Licensing and Ordinance Committee, where the committee members and police chief listened to them with interest. Thanks to a month’s work of local input from home schoolers, the draft ordinance completely avoided any kind of “daytime curfew” language. Instead, it prohibited “loitering near schools” to keep expelled and suspended public school students from “hanging out” around the high school.
Our Founding Fathers recognized that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. The home schoolers of Waukesha did what it took to get involved and affect the process before the daytime curfew ordinance enacted. HSLDA encourages home schoolers everywhere to follow their example!
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On, Wisconsin!
by
J. S. Hubbard & Charles D. Rosa
“. . . On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Grand old badger state! . . .”
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