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6/6/2002 3:58:28 PM Dewitt T. Black III, Esq., Senior Counsel of HSLDA Pennsylvania--Hearing Scheduled on House Bill 2560, June 13

---------------------------------------------------------------------- From the HSLDA E-lert Service... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- June 6, 2002 Dear HSLDA Members and Friends, As many of you already know, at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 13, 2002, the Pennsylvania House Education Committee will have a meeting in Harrisburg to hear testimony on House Bill 2560. Chris Klicka, Senior Counsel with HSLDA, will be one of the 10 speakers permitted to address the committee and will urge the committee members to vote for this legislation. Unfortunately, the support for this bill within the home school community is not unanimous, so your presence at this meeting is crucial to getting H.B. 2560 passed. Home educators in favor of this bill are being requested to wear red to identify themselves as supporters. Unless the committee sees overwhelming support for H.B. 2560 by home educators, it is likely that this positive legislation will die in the committee. REQUESTED ACTION (1) Please attend the meeting at the Forum Building next Thursday and wear red to indicate your support of H.B. 2560. Although the meeting does not start until 10:00 a.m., home school leaders are recommending that supporters arrive by 9:00 a.m. in order to be seated in the facility that holds 1,700 people. The Forum is at the corner of 4th Street and Commonwealth Avenue, just east of the Capital building. (2) We recommend that you take advantage of this time in Harrisburg to visit the offices of the members of the House Education Committee listed below and ask them to vote for H.B. 2560. House Education Committee: Majority Rep. Jess Stairs, Chairman, 717-783-9311 Rep. Fred McIlhattan, Secretary, 717-772-9908 Rep. Edward Krebs, Subcommittee Chairman on Higher Education, 717-783- 1815 Rep. Jerry Nailor, Subcommittee Chairman on Basic Education, 717-783- 5282 Rep. Bob Bastian, 717-783-8756 Rep. Paul Clymer, 717-783-3154 Rep. Patrick Fleagle, 717-783-5218 Rep. Robert Flick, 717-787-8579 Rep. Lynn Herman, 717-787-8594 Rep. Beverly Mackereth, 717-783-2655 Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, 717-783-1707 Rep. Ronald Miller, 717-783-8389 Rep. Samuel Rohrer, 717-787-8550 Rep. Jere Schuler, 717-783-6422 Rep. Thomas Stevenson, 717-787-2047 Minority Rep. Nicholas Colafella, Chairman, 717-787-5475 Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland, Secretary, 717-787-5881 Rep. William Robinson, Subcommittee Chairman on Higher Education, 717- 787-9460 Rep. James Roebuck, Jr., Subcommittee Chairman on Basic Education, 717-783-1000 Rep. Lawrence Curry, 717-783-1079 Rep. Richard Grucela, 717-705-1878 Rep. John Lawless, 717-787-5741 Rep. Phyllis Mundy, 717-783-1614 Rep. Sara Steelman, 717-772-2046 Rep. P. Michael Sturla, 717-787-3555 Rep. Thomas Yewcic, 717-783-0248 (3) We also ask you to visit the office of your own state representative and ask him to support House Bill 2560. To get the name and telephone number of your state representative, use HSLDA's Legislative Toolbox at: http://www.hslda.org/toolbox , or you can call of the office of the Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives at 717-787-2372. REASONS TO SUPPORT H.B. 2560 House Bill 2560 would do the following: - Eliminate the requirement for filing a notarized affidavit containing education objectives and personal health information for each child; - Eliminate the requirement of maintaining a portfolio of records and materials for each child; - Eliminate mandatory standardized testing; - Eliminate mandatory year-end evaluations; - Protect home education programs from any state oversight except what is contained in the statutory law enacted by the General Assembly in this bill; - Require the parent to provide an annual written notification of the home education program to the local public school superintendent within in 30 days of commencing the program; - Require that the annual notice include only the name, address, and age of the child and the name of the parent supervising the program; - Continue to require 180 days of instruction each year or 900 hours at the elementary level or 990 hours at the secondary level; - Establish course requirements similar to current law; - Establish graduation requirements essentially the same as current law but also entitling graduates of home education programs to receive all of the rights, benefits, and privileges of other high school graduates; and - Permit the parent of a special needs child to conduct a home education program without the approval of a state-certified special education teacher or a clinical or school psychologist, a requirement now exclusive to Pennsylvania. BACKGROUND H.B. 2560 presents an extraordinary opportunity for home educators in Pennsylvania to remove the burdensome and unnecessary administrative requirements of current law. These requirements not only take parents' time away from the instruction of children but also expend public school resources for which there is no allocation or reimbursement by the state. By enacting this legislation, Pennsylvania would join a growing majority of states that have revised their home school laws to make them less restrictive. The home educators of Pennsylvania have earned the right to less state intrusion oversight after demonstrating their success under the current law for the past 14 years. As a lawyer who has spent over 11 years at HSLDA assisting our member families in Pennsylvania, I can say from first-hand experience that passage of H.B 2560 will eliminate many of the legal problems home schooling families in your state face. HSLDA's long-term goal continues to be the repeal of all compulsory attendance laws, but in the meantime we will support efforts to make laws incrementally better for home educators. We believe this bill would make great strides toward our ultimate goal, so we wholeheartedly support this legislation and ask that you do so as well. To read my response to objections to H.B. 2560 raised by its opponents, go to: http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=416 To review a copy of the bill text, go to: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/BT/2001/0/HB2560P3799.HTM To view a complete list of bills HSLDA is monitoring in the state of Pennsylvania, visit our website at: http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=417 If you have any questions or concerns about what this bill would do, please do not hesitate to contact us for additional information. Very truly yours, Dewitt T. 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