| From the HSLDA E-lert Service: |
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| Date: From: Subject: | 2/7/2005 12:21:28 PM Home School Legal Defense Association Oregon--Urgent! Calls Needed to Stop School District Control of Homeschoolers |
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====================================================================== From the HSLDA E-lert Service... ====================================================================== February 7, 2005 Oregon--Urgent! Calls Needed to Stop School District Control of Homeschoolers Dear HSLDA members and friends: We need your calls now to eliminate a portion of Senate Bill 415 that would place restrictions on homeschoolers and to add a section to the bill that would increase homeschool freedoms! We are working together with OCEANetwork on a two part strategy to achieve this goal. First, we want to remove the section in Senate Bill 415 that would reorganize the current Education Service Districts (ESD's) by reducing the number of districts from twenty to eight. This section of SB 415 would also remove several large school districts from the ESD system. Homeschool parents living in these large school districts would be required to send their notice of intent and any test results directly to the school district instead of the ESD. This would reduce the freedom of homeschooling parents in Oregon and allow the local school district superintendent to force parents to send their children to public school if they score poorly on standardized achievement tests three years in a row. Secondly, we would like to use this opportunity to amend the bill to add the provisions of the "Homeschool Equity Bill." These amendments would remove the requirement that homeschool parents notify public school officials when they decide to teach their children at home. It would also eliminate the testing requirement in grades 3, 5, 8, and 10. Please call now since the Senator Education and Workforce Committee has scheduled a hearing on this bill from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. tonight! ACTION REQUESTED: 1) Please call and e-mail all of the members of the Senator Education and Workforce Committee and give them this message in your own words: "Please vote to remove the section in Senate Bill 415 that would require homeschool parents to report to their local school district rather than the Education Service District. This would cause a lot of unnecessary confusion between parents and public school officials. Please vote to amend Senate Bill 415 to remove the supervision of private home education. The amendments proposed by OCEANetwork will save taxpayer dollars and allow homeschool parents to be free to determine what is best for the education of their children." Senate Education and Workforce Committee members: Senator Vicki L Walker, Chair Phone: 503-986-1707 sen.vickiwalker@state.or.us Senator Charles Starr, Vice-Chair Phone: 503-986-1713 sen.charlesstarr@state.or.us Senator Ryan Deckert Phone: 503-986-1714 sen.ryandeckert@state.or.us Senator Jeff Kruse Phone: 503-986-1701 sen.jeffkruse@state.or.us Senator Bill Morrisette Phone: 503-986-1706 sen.billmorrisette@state.or.us BACKGROUND: Oregon currently has twenty Education Services Districts (ESD's) which oversee all of the local public school districts. Under the home education laws, a homeschool family must submit their notice of intent to teach their children at home and submit, upon request, the test results for grades 3, 5, 8, and 10 to their ESD. This prevents a family from being subject to their local school district and removes homeschoolers from scrutiny at the local level. If Senate Bill 415 is enacted, many homeschool families will find themselves reporting to their local public school district. If a child does poorly on one of the standardized achievement tests in grades 3, 5, 8, or 10 they would be required to be given another test the next year. If another poor test result occurs then the local public school superintendent could order the family to be under the supervision of a certified teacher. The homeschool parent would be responsible for paying for their own supervision. If a third test result is negative then the local public school district superintendent would have the ability to order the family to send that child to the public school. To see more information on this and other bills HSLDA is monitoring in Oregon, visit our website at: http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=2068 Thank you for fighting for freedom in Oregon. Sincerely, Thomas Schmidt HSLDA Staff Attorney ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -> Extreme makeovers are for extreme circumstances... Most homeschools don't need an extreme makeover, but there is something to be said for attention to detail and recognition of accomplishments. Watch the media and you'll soon see that not everyone wants home educators and homeschooling to look good. HSLDA works hard to shed light on the good work of home educators so it's obvious that we don't need someone "making-over" our homeschools. Join HSLDA and help us show the world that we're fine as we are . . . thank you! More reasons to join HSLDA... http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=1943 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ====================================================================== The HSLDA E-lert Service is a service of: Home School Legal Defense Association P.O. 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If this is an invalid email address or you have other problems, please reply to webmaster@hslda.org. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: This is considered a private and confidential message from HSLDA to its bonafide HSLDA E-lert Service subscribers. HSLDA cannot attest to the authenticity of copies posted, forwarded, or sent by any party other than HSLDA. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: Please do not reply or otherwise use this email address; hslda@hslda.org is for broadcast purposes only and is not intended to receive incoming messages. We cannot reply to any email sent to this address. If you have comments or questions, please send email to info@hslda.org or call HSLDA at 540-338-5600. HSLDA members can also email staff directly through the Members website at http://members.hslda.org/contact.asp. Thank you for your cooperation. ====================================================================== | |
