There were several interesting features of the HB368 study "survey" subcommittee.  What may be the most important item is at the end.....   

The Grantham (formerly Sanborn) and Interlakes superintendents and two assistant superintendents (Rochester and Dover) had been invited to address the subcommittee, composed of Representatives O'Neil, Rous, Ward, Stiles, and KShaw.  Of the four invitees, three had testified in February at the public hearing on HB367/368.   Various familiar approximations of the percentage of unsatisfactory homeschooling programs were offered again today.  Given that actual numbers had been made available by about a dozen superintendents' offices to homeschoolers who asked them earlier this year, the uncertainty of these four superintendents is hard to account for.  

Again today we heard about students who were simply missing from school, who weren't even claiming to be homeschooling, who appeared to be common truants, but who were being stirred into the stew of concern about homeschooling for some reason.    

The upshot of today's meeting seemed to be a sort of agreement on the subcommittee to continue to think about how to obtain from superintendents information about programs that are put on probation, and to look for ways to encourage/require intervention in a homeschooling program that is placed on probation.  There was some sense that the Home Education Advisory Council should somehow be involved, and the subcommittee seemed to be in agreement that some questions about this should be brought to the HEAC's next meeting on Tuesday, October 13.  

MEANWHILE,  the revision of the home education rules came up toward the end of the discussion.  As many of you know, 'administrative rules' are sometimes called for in particular legislation.  They are written by the appropriate government agency to guide the implementation of such laws, and when they complete the "rule-making process," they have "the force of law."   These current revisions to the home education rules were originally intended to simply bring the the home education rules (Ed315) into agreement with the changes to the education laws that have occurred over the past few legislative sessions. A draft was prepared by members of the Home Education Advisory Council to do just that.  As of last spring they were being worked on by the Department of Education's Roberta Tenney, Sarah Browning, and Mary Mayo.     

At Tuesday's meeting, when Rep. Rous indicated that she thought that the revised rules merely incorporated the recent legislative changes, Mary Mayo's reply seemed to indicate that it may be otherwise.  Rep Rous herself suggested that some of her concerns could be "handled in rulemaking" (e.g., 'guidance' for evaluation of portfolios). The revised rules are due to be presented to the State Board of Education on Wednesday, October 14.  You may want to be on hand at this meeting to educate yourself about the Board and rulemaking, and to alert the Board and others that homeschoolers will be attentive to the rules as they make their way through this sometimes murky process.    The State Board's meeting agenda should be posted in the next week or so.  Part of the process is a review of the rules by the legislature's Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (JLCAR) (whose members include Rep. Kimberley Casey, who as a member of last year's SB337 Commission expressed dissatisfaction with the current home education law).  There are opportunities for public comment at various points in the process.    

Another meeting of the 'survey' subcommittee is scheduled for Oct 20.  The complete House Education Committee is due to report its recommendations on HB368 by December 2.  The whole committee will have to meet to discuss this matter, presumably sometime in November.  The bill as reported out of the House Education Committee will likely come up for a vote in the full House in early January.