Connecticut’s Senate on Monday approved a bill that would impose the state’s first homeschooling regulations, sending the measure to Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont after a debate that stretched into late night and ended with a 22-14 vote just before midnight.
The bill, House Bill 5468, would add two requirements. First, it would require every family—whether their children attend public, nonpublic or are taught at home—to submit an annual form explaining how children will be educated. Second, it would limit a household’s ability to provide home education if the adults responsible for educating the children are either under investigation by the state Department of Children and Families or listed on Connecticut’s child abuse and neglect registry, with families already homeschooling grandfathered in under the final version.
During the Senate debate, Education Committee co-Chair Sen. Douglas McCrory, a Democrat, argued that the proposal simply applies a standard already used when a child’s teacher is their parent. McCrory said it was “very important to know that the adults who are responsible for educating these children do not have a history of harming children,” according to remarks included in the Associated Press report.
Opponents of the bill, including a number of Republican lawmakers, said the measure would overreach by bringing government oversight to homeschooling communities. Education Committee Ranking Member Sen. Eric Berthel, R-Watertown, told the Senate the issue was about more than homeschooling regulation, arguing that “What is at stake in H.B. 5468 is not simply homeschooling, but the meaning of liberty itself,” as described in the AP coverage.
Berthel also tied the bill’s restrictions to a constitutional argument he said echoes the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1925 Pierce v. Society of Sisters decision, which he quoted in the Senate as stating that “the child is not the mere creature of the state.” Berthel said that line marks a boundary, adding, “Parents do not exercise their role at the pleasure of a regulatory scheme like the one before us tonight,” according to the AP report.
Republican lawmakers, according to the AP, planned multiple amendments when the bill came up in the Senate and debated nine GOP amendments. All nine amendments were called and debated, and all nine failed. Several Republicans argued the state should instead pursue reforms to DCF, which they said has faced intense criticism, including in a public letter from Acting Child Advocate Christina Ghio that Berthel read on the Senate floor.
The AP report said Ghio’s letter cited a death of a child who, the report said, died in an apparent suicide less than an hour after asking a DCF worker to be placed into foster care during a home visit. While Ghio’s letter, as summarized by AP, did not say the child’s household was homeschooling, it did specify the children were not enrolled in school, and lawmakers said the case fed concern about DCF practices and the lack of a homeschooling-specific regulatory framework.
Before Monday’s final Senate action, the bill’s prospects depended on whether the Senate would take it up before the legislature’s rapidly approaching May 6 deadline, AP said. The day’s vote followed the House’s late April approval after revisions aimed at winning over hesitant Democrats, and the AP report said the final version also reflected the added annual form and the DCF check tied to investigations and the state registry.
As the debate closed, Sen. Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, disputed what he characterized as mischaracterizations of the bill by its opponents. He said opponents were “engaging in an ideological debate over issues and concerns that are not reflected in this bill at all,” and he described the proposal’s two rules as “a very minimal degree of regulation,” according to AP. Looney compared the regulations to laws against drunk driving and reckless driving, arguing that having such laws does not necessarily infringe the rights of responsible people, the report said.
The bill heads next to Lamont for his signature.