Stop NJ A4372, S3105

Updated Jan. 11, 2012: Bill reintroduced in NJ Senate - call or write your senator today.

Your message can be as simple as:

“A bill was filed and referred to the Education committee, S3105, that would turn New Jersey’s sensible legal framework for homeschooling into a complicated morass of regulations and red tape. Don’t add new burdens to school staff, tax payers, and parents. The current homeschool law is working. Please oppose S3105.”

Find your senator: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/districts/municipalities.asp

Original post:

Your calls are needed to stop a new threat that has arisen to your rights in New Jersey: A4372, filed by Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle. It is identical to Sen. Loretta Weinberg’s S3105.

Please make five phone calls by Thursday using the contact information below. Remember to be courteous.

- Call Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver at (973) 395-1166. She is the Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly and controls its business.
- Call Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan at (908) 757-1677. He is the chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, where A4372 has been referred.
- Call Assemblywoman Joan Voss at (201) 346-6400. She is the vice chair of the education committee.
- Call Assemblyman Erik Pederson (R) at (908) 237-4694 and Assemblyman John DiMaio (R) at (908) 684-9550

Feel free to email too: AsmDiMaio@njleg.org, AsmPeterson@njleg.org, AswOliver@njleg.org, asmdiegnan@njleg.org, Aswvoss@njleg.org

Huttle’s bill gives the State Board of Education dramatic new power over homeschool families. The board’s regulations could mandate exactly how all the bill’s requirements would be enforced, including what medical information must be submitted. The board could define homeschooling itself. The bill treats every homeschool parent like a suspected child abuser requiring them to file documentation of annual medical exams by September 1, to submit each child’s name, birth date, and homeschool instructor’s name every year by August 1 and a mandatory portfolio would be due June 30. Bureaucrats would have virtually unlimited power over what families must include in the "portfolio" and what is to be taught.

This bill would turn New Jersey’s current sensible legal framework for homeschooling into a morass of regulations and burdensome red tape. With identical bills now filed in both houses of the legislature, the situation is more serious. If both bills should pass in their own respective chambers, no vote in the other chamber would be needed for the bills to become law.

Your message can be as simple as:

“A bill was filed and referred to the Education committee, A4372, that would turn New Jersey’s sensible legal framework for homeschooling into a complicated morass of regulations and red tape. Don’t add new burdens to school staff, tax payers, and parents. The current homeschool law is working. Please oppose A4372.”

Thanks for helping to fight for our freedom to homeschool.
Paul
Follow @PaulEntin