ATTN: Senators: Solving abuse and educational neglect is NOT in Senate Bill 1031.  Please vote NO on SB 1031.

Senate Bill 1031 will not solve abuse and educational neglect of minors.

As abuse and neglect exist indiscriminately in both public and private spheres, Senate Bill 1031 has deceptively been presented as a remedy despite only targeting a small portion of homeschooling families.  Senate bill 1031 will not help those in abusive or negligent situations, but will harm law abiding families who use this exemption as a bridge between the deeply held values of their faith and educational expectations of their community. 

If the goal is to end abuse and educational neglect of minors, we need to be honest about our approach. Senate bill 1031 gives those who support it a false confidence because they feel they have “found the problem” and are “doing something.”  In reality, it does nothing for abuse or neglect, but does unfairly remove the religious exemption option to homeschool that gave many families with bona-fide religious beliefs the confidence to live their faith authentically, without fear of persecution and misuse of oversight by the government.

Senate Bill 1031 will not solve abuse and educational neglect of minors, but it will send a clear message that parents’ authority over their children is only by permission of the government, and the authentic expression of bona-fide religious beliefs is also only by permission of the government. Neither is American nor Constitutional, and is too great a cost to pay for a bill that will benefit no one.

The ramifications of this bill are not worth the imagined benefits.  Those who intend to abuse will find a way, whether they opt for homeschooling or commit their crimes in a public space.  Please align yourself with our deeply held American value of religious freedom, our cultural value of freedom of thought, and give us all confidence in your position as senator by not leaning into the easy out of persecuting and regulating religious families in the imagined hope that it will quell the evil that persists quite rampantly and notably in the public school space.