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| Date: From: Subject: | 3/17/2011 2:37:19 PM Home School Legal Defense Association Iowa--Good Bills Take Giant Steps in Des Moines |
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====================================================================== From the HSLDA E-lert Service... ====================================================================== Iowa--Good Bills Take Giant Steps in Des Moines Dear HSLDA Members and Friends: Home School Legal Defense and Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators (NICHE) are working together closely to protect issues of deepest interest to homeschool families during the legislative season. Bills that have not made it out of committee in their house of origin are effectively dead for this year, so it's a great time to summarize the good and the bad bills we have been tracking. BILLS THAT ARE MOVING FORWARD Good: New, Simpler Homeschool Option Iowa's homeschool law, with complex layers of statutes, regulations, shifting policies, and oft-changing handbooks, is one of the most complicated in the nation. Rather than trying to fix the problems with the competent private instruction statute, which would be like trying to peel an onion, NICHE and HSLDA have worked to develop a new homeschool option. It is called "independent private instruction" or IPI. Under HF 588, parents choosing IPI would not be required to file a notice or assessment annually. Less red tape means less wasted time, energy and resources. HF 588 passed the house yesterday and will now move to the senate. An IPI program could not enroll more than four unrelated students or charge tuition. It must provide private or religious-based instruction in math, reading and language arts, science and social studies. Upon written request, the IPI would be required to report the main instructor, location, and names of students. IPI would give Iowa homeschool families an option much like the system under which families operate in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Alaska, and other states that have simple homeschool laws. Good: Parent-taught Driver Education Parents in some states can teach behind-the-wheel driver education to their own children. HF 584 would bring this same blessing to Iowa. It passed the house yesterday and will now move to the senate. Good: Educational "Stay Put" When divorce brings turmoil to a child's life, parents can add even more turmoil by making the child's education a pawn in their own struggles. HF 604 helps protect educational stability for a child. If divorcing parents disagree about how a child should be educated, this bill prevents a judge from changing the child's customary form of education unless there is solid evidence that it should be changed. Good: Constitutional Definition of Marriage After the activist Iowa Supreme Court redefined marriage according to their own preferences, Iowans worked to become part of the solution. First, some of the responsible judges were removed from office. Next, a program was initiated to insert a common-sense definition of marriage into the Iowa Constitution. Known as Senate Joint Resolution 3, it is working its way through the senate. (A joint resolution does not follow the same time table as other bills.) The companion bill in the house is HJR 6. Good: Fixed CPI Filing Deadline As originally filed, HF 144 would have set a fixed filing date for the CPI form bizarrely at July 1, when no child is required to be in school. At our request, the date was changed to September 1, and the bill is moving forward. No Longer Bad: Deaf Children's Bill of Rights As originally written, SF 190 would have dramatically undermined the normal rights of parents of deaf children. Although it was couched in terms of sweeping rights and benefits, it would have set up a parent-hostile system not unlike the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. After we brought the bill's flaws to light, Senator Nancy Boettger worked to amend it comprehensively. No longer a threat, it passed the senate after being renumbered as SF 445 and will now move to the house. Bad: HF 580 (Formerly HF 379) School Age vs. Compulsory Age This bill could make it impossible for a licensed teacher to teach a child outside compulsory attendance age without government approval. While this was not the bill's intention, the actual language that was chosen would create this problem. The bill was intended to expand the age range of children who could dual enroll in public schools or participate in HSAPs. BILLS THAT ARE EFFECTIVELY DEAD FOR THIS YEAR Bad: Grandparents Threatening Parents There is a national trend to give grandparents more power to disrupt intact families by giving them greater rights to demand visitation with their grandchildren, even over parental objections. HF 297 would have made it easier for grandparents to override parental wishes. Bad: Making Kids Subject to Government Control Longer Teachers' unions are constantly pushing efforts to expand the number of years a child's life is under government control through compulsory attendance law. HF 275, HF 71 and HF 116, would have raised the termination age for compulsory attendance from 16 to 18. Bad: Warrantless Power to Social Workers A bill that would have given social workers power--without a warrant--to enter any "facility, program or school" to examine all records failed to make it out of committee in its house of origin. Not only was this bill hostile to constitutional principles, but the types of "programs" social workers could enter was not defined, potentially leaving a crack in the door for activist judges to declare a homeschool is a program that could be entered without a warrant. Track these and other bill on HSLDA's Iowa legislation page: http://hslda.org/legislation/state/IA/default.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -> Can you call your attorney at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning? Our members can get in touch with their attorney even after business hours, when they have a legal emergency. Wouldn't you like this level of service? More reasons to join HSLDA... http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=1100 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ====================================================================== The HSLDA E-lert Service is a service of: Home School Legal Defense Association P.O. 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