UPDATE: Victory! The Senate Education and Health Committee voted in the General Assembly, and SB 1031 was passed by indefinitely, meaning the bill failed to advance in the Senate. A win for education freedom in Virginia!
Education freedom is under attack in Virginia.
In VA, you can homeschool for secular reasons or religious reasons. On the secular track, there are many more requirements under existing law. Under the religious exemption, families are currently able to circumvent much of the red tape and regulation.
SB 1031, currently up for consideration in the State Senate, would force Virginia families who homeschool for religious reasons to request religious exemptions from their district superintendent. It would also give superintendents the power to approve or deny religious exemptions. This bill would monitor what these families are teaching their children, their progress, and whether or not the parents’ education levels and religious beliefs—which would be decided by an unelected official— qualifies them for the religious exemption.
This marks a radical step away from current Virginia policy, which only requires families to inform their elected school boards of their intent to homeschool for religious reasons. SB 1031 would disempower not only families but elected officials, and instead grant unelected district bureaucrats the power to judge families’ religious convictions. The bill would also add additional burdens on families seeking religious exemptions, such as requiring parents to provide proof of qualifications to instruct their children as well as evidence of the child’s learning.
In Virginia, 1.2 million students are enrolled in public K-12 schools, compared to only 56,008 homeschooled students. Of that 56,008, only 6,755 hold religious exemptions. In other words, the bill infringes on religious and educational freedom more broadly by going after a minority within a minority and making homeschooling more burdensome and less accessible to families who desire to educate their children per their religious beliefs and values.
This must not stand! Write to your Virginia state senator today and tell him or her to vote “No!” on placing more government restrictions on families’ religious and educational freedoms.
