| From the HSLDA E-lert Service: |
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| Date: From: Subject: | 6/16/2011 3:59:43 PM Home School Legal Defense Association Illinois: Call Now to Oppose Belleville Daytime Curfew Ordinance |
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====================================================================== From the HSLDA E-lert Service... ====================================================================== Dear Members and Friends in (and around) Belleville, Illinois: Belleville's Board of Aldermen is scheduled to take a final vote to enact a proposed daytime curfew ordinance at its Monday, June 20 meeting at 7:00 pm. Please take action to help protect freedom! The proposed daytime curfew prohibits minors under age 17 from being present in any public place during the hours of 9:00 am to 2:30 pm on weekdays or any establishment or public place during other evening hours except under certain specified conditions. A link to the proposed ordinance can be found on our website here. This ordinance creates a criminal offense for both minors and their parents and would allow law enforcement personnel to arrest minors on the street during school hours as a suspect. The daytime curfew proposal is unnecessary and un-American and there is no change that could make it acceptable. An ordinance that criminalizes parents and their children for simply being in a public place is simply unacceptable. Even though the bill includes a long list of "exceptions" no one should have to defend themselves from being in a public place simply because they "look young". City Police already have the necessary authority to deal with crimes and the schools have laws to address truancy. There is no need for more regulation. ACTION REQUESTED (Belleville residents only, please) 1. Please attend the 7:00 pm June 20 meeting of the committee, at 101 South Illinois Street Belleville, to express your opposition to the proposed daytime curfew. You may be able to offer testimony depending on how many homeschoolers show up; comments are limited to two minutes. 2. Call the following members of the committee (phone numbers below). Your message can be as simple as "Please vote NO on the proposed daytime curfew ordinance." 3. If you are willing to help fight this in ways above and beyond the items above, please call or email Peter LaRock by Friday evening at (540) 338-5600 or peterl@hslda.org. CONTACT INFORMATION--Committee Members Michael Heisler (618) 277-3304 Ken Kinsella (618) 234-0825 Dorothy Meyer (618) 277-6600 x2205 (618) 277-3855 Rob Anderson (618) 235-2363 (618) 558-8301 A 'Gabby' Rujawitz (618) 235-5077 Tim Carpenter (618) 977-2143 Dean Hardt (618) 830-1135 Phillip Silsby (618) 257-1524 Joseph Hayden (618) 234-8956 Paul Seibert (618) 233-3917 Dave Martinson (618) 277-4234 Phil Elmore (618) 235-1987 Lillian Schneider (618) 234-7569 James Musgrove (618) 233-3967 (618) 407-7975 Joe Orlet (618) 394-0661 BACKGROUND INFORMATION Public schools take attendance in every class. They know the names and addresses of every child who appears to be absent without excuse. An ordinance could be drafted that would direct enforcement only against those students, and it could be done in a way that would not make our young people fearful of going outside during the daytime. You may be told that other towns and counties already have identical ordinances. That is hardly a good reason to enact the same bad law in another town or county! If more towns or counties adopt similar ordinances, the likelihood of homeschoolers being harassed and intimidated rises. If we want to borrow the ordinance of another town or county, let's borrow a good one. Another town in Illinois, Belvidere, introduced a daytime curfew in 1996. Data from the Illinois State Board of Education show that chronic truancy actually went up after Belvidere enacted its daytime curfew. Before the ordinance 136 students per year were chronically truant, on average. During the 10 years which followed, 235 students per year were chronically truant, on average. Since Belvidere's truancy actually went up after they enacted their daytime curfew ordinance, it defies reason to believe that a daytime curfew ordinance would reduce truancy. There is no doubt that public school truancy is a significant problem; 741,000 public school students were reported as truant in 2008-2009. That's about one-third of the entire public school enrollment. But public schools already know the names and addresses of these truants, and enforcement mechanisms are already in place. There is no legitimate need to enact ordinances that create an atmosphere that encourages every young person on the street during school hours to be treated like a suspected criminal. You may view a draft of the proposed ordinance here: http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=11551 Thank you for standing with us for freedom! Sincerely yours, Scott A. Woodruff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -> Is customer service an art or a science? 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Thank you for your cooperation. ====================================================================== | |
