‘Homeschool Act’ changes create more problems, could traumatize kids

Bill sponsors for a second time amended the ‘Homeschool Act’ as they tried to blunt the heavy criticism of the constitutional, parenting and privacy rights it could trample. Illinois Policy expert testimony showed the changes create more problems with the bill.

The “Homeschool Act” was amended in an effort to curb some of the historic opposition to it and the government overreach it would enable, but some of the changes make the bill even worse.

The changes quickly drew new opposition: 41,000 people in less than 24 hours used the Illinois General Assembly’s website to publicly oppose the changes. That followed 51,328 opponents on the bill’s first amendment and 42,393 on the original version of the bill – all records for any bill since the legislature implemented the witness system.

The following written testimony by Illinois Policy Senior Director of Labor Policy and Staff Attorney Mailee Smith was filed April 9 to the Illinois House Education Policy Committee on House Bill 2827, Amendment 2.

Testimony in opposition to HB 2827

I am Mailee Smith, staff attorney and senior director of labor policy at Illinois Policy. Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony.

As I testified previously, I am before you today not only in my official capacity as an attorney, but also as the mother of three children whose experiences include having been in public high school since 2020, in a private K-8 school from 2011-2024, and one who is currently being homeschooled. I also spent nearly a decade as a school board member of a private school.

As both an attorney and a homeschooling mother, I have many concerns with the amendment to House Bill 2827. It is arguably more problematic than the version that passed out of this committee on March 19. Here are nine of the most concerning provisions in this bill:

1. The required “homeschool notification form” not only includes personal information, it “may” also mandate a list of “any curriculum purchased or used for the homeschool.” It is left to the whim of the state board of education to determine what is in the form, and it could require a list of curricula. Requiring parents to file an annual list of curricula is burdensome and confusing. The bill doesn’t even give a date specification – is it the curricula of the current year? The previous year? Ironically, this is not something public schools are even required to list or post.
2. Parents who decide to homeschool a child in the middle of the year because of bullying or health issues are at risk. They have just three business days to file the form, even in the midst of major upheaval in their lives. Our own homeschool story includes this type of situation. Our daughter has a medical condition that causes brain inflammation. Our decision to homeschool came because of a massive flare. I can assure you that getting a form to a regional office about homeschooling would not have been at the top of our priority list as we dealt with a life-altering health issue. Yet my family could have been targeted for truancy under this bill. As I will explain later on, my daughter even could have been interviewed – alone – by a truancy officer.
3. There is still an element of criminality in the bill. The amendment provides multiple scenarios in which a truancy officer could refer a family to the local state’s attorney. In addition, truancy officers could enforce these provisions differently from region to region. That differential treatment raises constitutional red flags. It’s a basic tenet of constitutional law that a reasonable person must understand what a law requires and how it will be enforced. It cannot be written in a way that invites arbitrary enforcement as it is here.
4. Children’s gender will be required on the homeschool notification forms. Each regional office of education must make an annual report to the state superintendent of education that includes the total count of students homeschooling in the area, broken down “by grade level and gender.” That indicates a child’s gender must also be required on the “homeschool notification form,” even though the bill doesn’t outline “gender” as required information. This ability of the state board of education to require anything it wants on the form is underscored by the bill’s additional provision allowing the board to “adopt any rules necessary to implement and administer the Act.”  There is no limit on what the board could require.
5. Anonymous reports could start the investigation of homeschooling families. Reports of truancy or educational neglect that are referred to a regional office of education are to be further investigated by a truancy officer. But that begs the question: where do these reports of truancy originate? The bill states the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services shall refer reports of truancy to the relevant regional office of education. But again, where is DCFS getting a report that a family may be homeschooling and hasn’t submitted a form or isn’t providing an “adequate” education? That’s 59 pages into the bill, where it amends the “Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act” to add the following requirement: Whenever DCFS receives a report of suspected truancy via its toll-free hotline, the department shall notify the caller that the report must go to the local regional office of education and provide a website to find the contact information. So DCFS is to direct people who call its hotline reporting suspected truancy to the regional office of education. This appears to be the mechanism that triggers everything: a potentially anonymous report. A nosy neighbor. Or someone who just doesn’t agree with homeschooling.
6. Truancy officers can demand to meet with children, without their parents, just to establish whether there is “cause” for an investigation: The bill provides that a truancy officer notified of a homeschool in violation of Section 30 – which is the section entitled “accusation of truancy” – “shall meet with the child or children complained of and make an initial determination of whether there is cause to start a truancy investigation.” The section says he may demand to meet with the children – not their parents, and not the children in the presence of their parents. Just to make an initial determination of whether there even is “cause” to start an investigation. We’re not talking about an ongoing investigation but an inquiry into whether there should be an investigation at all. Even if a determination of “no cause” is made, the damage is already done – children have already been interviewed by a stranger without their parents present. If the truancy officer finds no cause, he is to assist the family in submitting the homeschool notification form – which indicates all of this could be initiated just because the family didn’t fill out a form.
7. The costs to the regional offices of education remain: During the March 19 hearing, Gary Tipsord, the executive director of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, testified the bill would increase the regional offices’ workload. He stated, “There’s likely to be additional costs. Those currently are unknown. We just don’t know what the cost would be,” and “You would anticipate additional cost or moving resources from one area to another.” The amendment does not change these potential costs.
8. The bill still creates lists of families’ religious affiliations: By requiring a log of homeschool families’ curricula in the homeschool notification form and the educational portfolio, the state would be gathering a list of families that use specific religious curricula. This is akin to the state creating a list of parents and the religions to which they subscribe. That is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent of tracking what religions or worldviews are being taught.
9. Private schools are still regulated: The amendment still mandates that private schools register every year, but it adds that they must confirm or deny the enrollment and attendance of a child when asked by a truancy officer. There are potential privacy violations involved. In addition, it is unclear from the bill what would trigger a truancy officer to start investigating a private school family or how he would know to go to a particular school. Most of the bill’s procedural provisions involve homeschool families. It’s possible an anonymous report to a regional office could trigger this sort of investigation as well.

Like the original bill and the first amendment to HB 2827, this version includes numerous constitutional and other legal pitfalls, not to mention trauma to families. Families could be investigated based on anonymous complaints. Children could be interrogated by a truancy officer before there’s even “cause” for an investigation.

In many ways, this amendment is more problematic than the one that passed this committee after generating a historic 51,000-plus witness slips in opposition. I urge this committee and members of the House to vote “no” on the amendment and House Bill 2827.