KID Committee Hearing Transcript for 02/19/2008

SENATOR MEYER: Good morning. We are hearing today one bill and that bill is intended to simplify the process of parents being able to home school their children.

In other words, it is intended to simplify the process by which a child is withdrawn from public school at the decision of parents to home school their children.

The bill that is actually in front of us is a bit different than the bill the Committee approved. The Committee approved by a vote of nine to nothing, and by approved I'm talking about we agreed to raise it and to consider it, by a vote of nine to nothing.

The bill that was offered last year by Representative Art O'Neill and apparently unbeknownst to Representative O'Neill and me until over the weekend, the Legislative Commissioner's Office on its own initiative made some changes in the bill and amended a different section of the law than Representative O'Neill had intended.

I just want you to know that the bill that is in front of us is not the bill that was raised by the Committee. We're going to ultimately, if there are no amendments, be hearing the bill that was raised by Representative O'Neill.

For the record, let me read that to you. Subsection (a) of Section 10-220 of the General Statutes be amended to provide when a parent or guardian of a child provides by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the principal of the school that the child attends or to the superintendent of the local or regional board of education, written notice originated by and signed by the parent or guardian of a child stating that the parent or guardian is withdrawing the child from enrollment in a public school and will provide instruction for the child as required pursuant to Section 10-184, the principal of the school that the child attends or the local or regional board of education shall accept such notice and shall deem the child withdrawn from enrollment in the public school immediately upon receipt of such notice.

That is Representative O'Neill's bill. That is the bill that this Committee voted by a vote of nine to nothing to raise. That is the primary focus of this hearing today and not the bill that the Legislative Commission's Office, on its own initiative, changed.

We have a rule here that in the first hour of a public hearing we will hear from Legislators and state agency heads and then we'll take members of the public. We have a list of only six legislators and agency heads, so we'll be able to get through that quickly.

We should be able to get through that in less than an hour and then hear from the members of the public who have signed up. Chairman McMahon, do you have anything that you want to add to this?

REP. MCMAHON: No. I just want to welcome everybody. We're so glad to see you all. Thank you for coming. I hope that all the young people here have a very good experience and learn a little bit about how we make laws. Hopefully, we make laws that will benefit them and all the people in Connecticut. Thanks.

SEN. MEYER: Senator Freedman, anything that you would like to add?

SEN. FREEDMAN: I just welcome everybody and I look forward to hearing your testimony, even though the bill that you thought you were testifying on is different from what we thought you were going to be testifying on.

Again, it is a learning experience for everyone. So to the home school children here today, take this back home and you'll be able to do a lot with that as another project. I look forward to hearing from you.

SEN. MEYER: Our first witness is going to be the chief sponsor of this bill who has been committed to home schooling and the constitutional legal right of parents to home school their children, Representative Art O'Neill.

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: Good morning, Chairman Meyer, Chairman McMahon, other Members of the Committee. I want to thank you first off for sponsoring this hearing for raising Senate Bill 162, which while it does not contain the precise language, nor does it amend the precise sections that I think are the correct ones to amend and the correct language to use, it does put us in the right direction.

It does head us down the road, I think, towards the right language and I believe that the language from last year's bill as Chairman Meyer as indicated would be better than the language that's in the bill that's being heard today.

For the benefit of everyone because I think there are some concerns of some of the folks that have been working on behalf of this legislation for a number of years that somehow things have gone awry.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens from time to time given the speed with which things are being done. This hearing is being held very early in the process so as to give everyone an opportunity to have time to work on it.

And, in fact, that's what the Legislature does after we do the beginning of pieces of legislation. I've never done a count, but my guess is that half or more of all the bills that are heard by a Committee are substitute language bills rather than the original language in the bill that was actually at the hearing.

And that's why we have public hearings so that we can learn about the bill and make changes in accordance with what the public has to tell us. I compared it to people sometimes think the Legislature is sort of NASA doing a moon shot, and in fact it's really more like a diner at lunchtime.

Sometimes you put in an order for poached eggs and you get back scrambled. The good thing is that you can always send back what you got the first time and get the right thing sent to you and that's what I'm sure will happen with this bill.

Now, to the concept itself which is what parents want, especially those that are home-schoolers, but there are others as well, those who would perhaps consider private school, a simple direct way to give notice to a public school system that their intention is to withdraw the child, that they are just going to have to go through a process of sending a certified letter and that they would be considered deemed to have withdrawn a child upon the receipt by the local education authority of that certified letter.

Obviously, it has to be in writing. It needs to be signed by the parent that's exercising their rights. That would simplify things because what brings this legislation forward is that there are problems.

Not everyone has problems and I'm sure you're going to hear today from some parents who had no trouble at all dealing with their local school district. They communicated with them.

There was no demand that you sign a particular piece of paper that was of a particular shape or had all sorts of additional requirements showing on it, but rather they had an easy time and they didn't have any problems and they have a good experience to talk about.

Others are going to have some very negative experiences and difficulties dealing with their local school district and with particular individuals, sometimes with large numbers of people ending up in litigation.

Ending up at times with the Department of Children and Families called in. This is really the worst-case scenario when the Department of Children and Families are called in and allegations made of educational neglect under the statutes that we have.

A DCF worker shows up at the doorstep, sometimes with a police officer in tow, to confront the parent to demand to see the child, to see other documents and to basically say if you don't let me in, I'm going to start writing up a report.

You're going to hear stories like this. The stories, unfortunately, seem to, and perhaps today will give a better indication, but the experience that I've had in talking to and listening to the families, it is often the case that if there was a problem in the school system that had been going on for a while and the school system was unable or unwilling to address it and then the parent decides to withdraw, that's when you almost get the impression that the school system will say, ah-ha, well, you can't withdraw.

We won't fix the problem and you can't walk away from us either. We've got you and we're going to keep you. That seems to be the situation that is the biggest source of these problems in my just watching, listening and talking.

When the parents come in, perhaps without having been enrolled in the school system, or there has never been an outstanding problem and a conflict develops, it seems like those are the easier cases, the ones where the parent didn't have any really serious difficulty.

Because there is no statute that explicitly details how the parent should exercise their rights, it's been left to either the State Department of Education, which has developed some guidelines.

Not statutes, not regulations, just some guidelines that are identified as suggested or voluntary, and then school districts on their own try to create some sort of iron policy that they're going to follow, and then when things go badly, they turn to DCF as sort of the police force to try to compel parents to follow a set of rules that have been just made up to a large extent by the local school district.

What this legislation will do is clarify the situation so if there is a school district that in good faith is trying to do what they believe is required by state statute, it will clarify that.

Or they think that there is a law somewhere, although they could never point to one specifically when called upon on many occasions to do so, that this will now show a path, especially if you go back to the language from last year's bill, a clear path for everyone to follow and avoid unnecessary conflicts.

If there are cases where there genuinely is some kind of a problem, such as child neglect or abuse or something like that, that's a different story. There shouldn't be anybody being reported to DCF.

There shouldn't be any cases going forward at DCF where all that's missing is a specific piece of paper in the file that somebody in the school system has said we need this piece of paper signed by somebody.

That shouldn't be the basis of setting in motion the tremendous powers of the state and threatening, literally, to have children taken away from their parents because they're trying to educate them at home in a situation where the school system was just not providing an appropriate educational experience or where there was some kind of problem.

Again, it has gotten a lot of publicity in the last couple of days, but it also occurs in the situations that you'll hear today, where bullying has been a problem for the children and that is the trigger mechanism that starts all of this is that the child is not being properly protected in the school system.

And we know, I think, that bullying has become a serious problem and it's one that perhaps has not been recognized clearly by some local school districts.

I hope you will go forward with the language that we had from last year and that you can do so fairly quickly and we can move this legislation forward.

SEN. MEYER: Representative O'Neill, thanks for your initiative. Can you tell the Committee, just briefly, about the legislative history of this bill in prior years? What happened to it and whether or not there has been any change in the language that you proposed?

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: I think it was either three or four years ago I proposed legislation, which never got a public hearing. It was referred to the Education Committee. I tried doing it as an amendment on the floor of the House that year and the language was somewhat different.

It did not have a specification that the letter had to be sent by certified mail and it said something to the effect if the parent communicates in any way with the school district, so it conceivably could have included oral communications, which opens the door for potential conflicts as to exactly what was said and what the intent was.

That language was gradually worked over. When it was done as an amendment, the Chair of the House of Representatives, the Education Committee and I had a bit of a debate.

And it had reached a point where he said something to the effect that any means of communication or any way of delivering the message, would that include a note wrapped around a brick thrown through the school house window.

Which was not certainly the intent, but I guess taken to, and we do that, with the parade of the horrible extremes, sometimes point out where language could be taken if someone really wanted to push it to the extreme language.

That language, however, was gradually refined over the course of a couple of amendments on the floor of the House until we got to the language which became last year's bill and which was also filed as an amendment.

I tried to call it, but unfortunately there weren't really any good bills last year to attach that language it. It was ruled not germane on the floor of the House on a couple of occasions when I tried to get the amendment brought forward.

It did gradually gain support of more and more Members of the House and I think the language did improve as a result of the numerous attempts to get an amendment done on the floor of the House.

SEN. MEYER: Just one other question. I got some calls over the weekend from home schooling advocates who were particularly concerned about the bill that was drafted by the Legislative Commission's Office and they were concerned about one particular provision in the bill and that language is this.

It has a condition that's prescribed in order to home school. It says, and I'm reading literally, if a parent or other person having control of a child elects to provide the instruction required pursuant to this section to such child and then goes on to give notice of withdrawal, but here's the condition, if the parent or other person having control of a child elects to provide the instruction required by this section.

There was objection by advocates concerning that condition and that stipulation that the parent would have to instruct.

I notice looking at your bill that while written differently, you also seem to recognize that a parent will have an obligation under the law to instruct their children as part of home schooling.

You do that by saying in your bill that the parent, and I am quoting, will provide instruction for the child as required pursuant to Section 10-184.

Is it your understanding that the law of Connecticut will continue to require home schooling parents to provide the education to their children that's set forth in our law?

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: Yes. The purpose of the withdrawal is not to avoid schooling of the child, but rather to exercise the right to have one of a variety of options.

I think that partly it's the word elects, which when people are looking at it they're trying to figure out what does that mean.

Words do have meaning and this isn't an area where people are getting along with each other and everyone will behave quite reasonably and that sort of thing.

We've had a fairly long history now going back a number of years of, frankly, the attorneys representing the school boards who sent off to court or people from DCF grabbing hold of this language, will run pretty far with it if they get a chance.

The idea was to try to be as clear and concise as possible, which was what the language from last year's bill was intended to do. It recognizes that there is an obligation under 10-184.

I think we've got a pretty good idea of what that means. That has been understood for a while now.

The language that has been put in there when the parent elects to provide the instruction that's called for, it seems like it opens the door to then saying, well, if you elect, then you've got to go through some additional processes.

Whatever 10-184 requires, it requires now and would require afterward. The difference is that the main focus of my legislation was on the withdrawal process and I think there's a shift in focus by making amendments to 10-184 itself that seems to change this more into a question about home schooling and less about withdrawing from school for the purpose of home schooling.

I think their concerns are not so much that they don't believe that there would be a legal obligation to provide home education pursuant to 10-184.

That's why home schooling exists in Connecticut, is that it is ultimately the parents' obligation to provide home schooling, but rather that some of those words could be seized upon by aggressive litigators as it were, either DCF or at the local school board level, to try to push additional requirements onto these parents that go beyond what's called for or has been understood to be within 10-184.

Once you start changing 10-184, I think the courts would assume that we must have meant something by changing the words in that section itself as opposed to changing language in the withdrawal section.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you very much for clarifying that. I have enjoyed working with you on this and also you and I participated in a conference on this in Bradford this past summer and we heard from so many home schooling parents at that time. That was very helpful, as well.

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: I've enjoyed it, too. I look forward to working with you as we go through the rest of the Session.

SEN. MEYER: Representative McMahon, do you have any questions that you would like to ask?

REP. MCMAHON: No. I think you cleared up everything.

SEN. MEYER: Senator Freedman.

SEN. FREEDMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Representative O'Neill. I have a couple of questions. Having watched a lot of home schooling situations, I think they do a fabulous job at educating their children and I give them a lot of credit for that.

Currently, if a child is withdrawn to go to a private school, what hoops do they have to go through in order to get their child dis-enrolled from the public school? Do you know?

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: My understanding is that there really is no official process for that. This is treated, however, as a different kind of thing. And, in fact, private school may be predicated on a somewhat different basis than home schooling.

There is a provision in 10-184 that talks about what the requirements of parents are. There is a list of things the parents are supposed to do.

Then you have to demonstrate either that you drop them off at the public school and satisfy those requirements that way, or show that education is being otherwise provided someplace else, language to that effect.

I think that's perhaps the basis of private education. I have not had private school people tell me that they have had a problem with this, whether it's a parochial school or a place like Ramsey Hall or The Gunnery or someplace like that.

In my District, I have several private schools. I've never heard of a problem with a parent wanting to withdraw from the public school to go to one of those schools.

Perhaps because of the tradition we've had in Connecticut of a long-standing of many times private schools being used by people, that it's just a custom.

There really has never been, as far as I know, any kind of pressure on folks going to a private school in the same way that there has been by the people who are wanting to do home schooling.

I'm not precisely sure what they do. My impression is, though, that a note or some sort of letter perhaps, is issued by the private school saying to the public school that this kid is now enrolled with our school system. I'm not really sure.

SEN. FREEDMAN: Okay. I'll do some research on that because I do think that once a child is enrolled in a private school, and it can be at any time, the public school doesn't get notified until, I believe, the transcripts are asked for at some point.

What I would like to do is just make sure that we're consistent. Whatever we do here, we should be doing and make sure everybody is on the same page and not treat one group quite differently when they're doing technically, I consider home schooling the same as being in a private school.

They're in their own home private school. I like the suggestions that you've made in this legislation. I'll do research on the other part.

The other question I have, are there certain school systems that tend to be more difficult to deal with when it comes to home schooling and, if so, can we get at least a little ball game list of those schools so that we'll be able to know why we have the problem?

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: Actually, we have a map.

SEN. FREEDMAN: Good. I see it now.

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: The school districts that are colored in orange, and I'm assuming someone will testify about the map in more detail, are the ones that seem to have had the most problems in this particular area. Not every school district has a problem every year.

As I said, I think you're going to hear from some parents in a particular school district who moved into the district, had been home schooling previously, notified the district that they were planning to continue home schooling and never had a problem.

Others, because let's say a child was being bullied, they have a year or two long back-and-forth between themselves and the school system and finally give up and decide to home school and then they have a serious problem.

Even within a single school district it seems like you can get variable responses depending on who is doing the asking.

With respect to the public school, private school, the original legislation because it was focused on withdrawal from school particularly really opens the door or makes clear what a person going to a private school would do as well.

They would have the same simplified process. They wouldn't have to wonder whether at some point they're going to be suddenly told that for the last three years that you've been sending your child to Mary Hall, that they've been declared truant because somebody didn't file some piece of paper because as far as they know, they, too, would be potentially eligible for that.

It's just that I think most school administrators would find it pretty embarrassing to say that they were complaining about The Gunnery somehow not providing good education.

SEN. FREEDMAN: Thank you. I look forward to following this bill, hopefully through this Committee and through Education.

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: Representative Ruwet.

REP. RUWET: Representative O'Neill, I'm glad you changed. I know you were here late last night on this issue as well.

I really just want to thank you for championing this important legislation and following it for the last two years, listening and certainly doing meetings across the State of Connecticut to get this issue to our attention. I think sometimes we don't thank each other enough, but I want to thank you for championing this.

REP. ARTHUR J. O'NEILL: Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: Okay. Thank you very much, Representative O'Neill. Our next witness will be Representative Al Adinolfi. He'll be followed by Senator Debicella, Representative Ritter and Representative Miller. Good morning.

REP. AL ADINOLFI: Thank you, Chairs of the Senate Select Committee on Children, the Ranking Members and Members of the Committee. I would like to thank you for allowing me to be here today.

The provisions of the bill that has been submitted provide a concept for a standardized procedure by which parents can withdraw their children from school and reconfirms parents' rights to home school their children without punishment.

The bill as submitted, as stated before, the language still requires some work and should be modified similar to the bill that we had submitted in 2007 and we've already mentioned it so I won't go into that.

It should require that parents provide notice in writing to the school stating their intent to withdraw their child from the school and that education will be provided for them and by them.

Current laws on this issue are vague and as a result some towns needlessly and falsely contact the Department of Children and Families to report child neglect on the parents for pulling their kids out of the school system.

I don't understand this and why this is done. I believe this practice is burdensome on DCF, a waste of towns' resources and a waste of money basically, and more importantly, it undermines parents' interests and intentions to provide the quality education for their children.

Towns that resort to this practice senselessly throw parents and children in the frontline of their battle to preserve federal funds. That's what the bottom line comes down to, with no regard to the implications.

I have several constituents in my District who home school their children. Their children are doing extremely well, are fully engaged in social activities and are applying to top universities and colleges to further their learning.

Home schooling works well when it is done right and the people that I know that are involved in it are doing it right.

As I mentioned a few days ago, one thing that we get in home schooling that we don't get in many of the public schools, is learning a little bit more about morality and family values, which I think is very important, too.

That's something that we're not doing in the public schools and maybe we should think about doing that. I believe this legislation is long overdue and I am happy to have had this opportunity to share my views.

I appreciate the Committee's willingness to consider the issue and commitment to the children and parents of the state. Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you, Representative. Are there any questions of Representative Adinolfi? You were so clear that there are no questions.

REP. AL ADINOLFI: Right to the next meeting.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you. Our next witness is Senator Debicella, the distinguished Senator from Shelton.

SEN. DAN DEBICELLA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having me here today and for having this hearing. I would also like to thank Representative O'Neill for his leadership on this issue, but just as importantly, Mr. and Madam Chairman, I would like to thank you as well.

Something that a lot of our students in the audience see on TV all too often are Republicans and Democrats arguing because that's obviously what makes for a night's news story.

In reality what happens in this building and what's happening on this very bill is Republicans and Democrats are actually working together to do what's right for our students and for our families.

I am here today to testify on behalf of the original language for Senate Bill 162. We have many excellent choices for educating our students here in Connecticut. We have great public schools.

We have wonderful private schools and we have dedicated parents who are willing to teach our students at home.

I believe that this bill is going to strengthen parents' rights to actually choose between those three different options by making a standardized process to allow parents to withdraw their children from school, either to send them to a private school as Senator Freedman mentioned, we should probably have one process for that, or to home school those children.

The stories that I've heard, both from people in my district and throughout the state are truly harrowing. Parents should have the right to choose what's best for their children and to hear stories of individual school districts coming down on families because they've made that choice, is a little bit nerve-racking.

We live in a society that we actually take great pride in our individual liberties and the liberty to choose how you educate our children is probably one of the greatest ones.

I think this bill is just commonsense at the end of the day because it's not only good for families, but it's good for the school districts as well.

To provide a written record, to actually say exactly which children are being schooled at home, which children are going to private schools. To me, this is a win-win.

This is a win for families to clarify parental rights, but it's also a win for the school districts to provide them with a written record to know exactly who is in school in public school, who is in private school and who is being home schooled.

So, again, I would like to thank all of you on the Committee for raising this bill and I encourage you to pass it out for a vote on the floor.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you, Senator. Are there any questions of Senator Debicella? You said it all.

SEN. DAN DEBICELLA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you. Representative Miller is next. He was engaged in a conflict so we're going to take you next and he'll be followed by Representative Betsy Ritter.

REP. LAWRENCE G. MILLER: Thank you and good morning to Senator Meyer, Representative McMahon, Ranking Members, Senator Freedman and Ann Ruwet, my seatmate, as well as the rest of the Committee, who as my friend joked, the oldie from Westport.

I'm here to testify in favor of the bill and I understand that it has to be re-written. Just by way of my own experiences, I have a neighbor from across the street from where I live, the Pitt family, and they are home schoolers.

I have observed over the years their attention and concerns about their two children, both the husband and wife are college graduates and they decided to do home schooling many years ago.

They're very involved with home schoolers in the area in Fairfield County and both their children, the son is now attending Annapolis and the daughter is either in business or working in the business sector.

They've done a great job. I know they're very concerned and I know that quite often I think the public school system could get some good experience by listening to some of these home schoolers as to what they do.

Certainly, there's a lot of improvement that could be made in our public school system. I would just tell you that I support home schoolers. They do a fantastic job.

I could go on for a while because I have a whole file of information from all over the country regarding home schoolers, but I won't. I won't burden you with it.

I appreciate your listening to me and hopefully this Committee will pass that bill in a re-write fashion. Thank you very much.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you, Representative Miller. Are there any questions? No questions. Thanks.

REP. LAWRENCE G. MILLER: Thanks a lot.

SEN. MEYER: Our next witness is Representative Betsy Ritter. There you are.

REP. ELIZABETH B. RITTER: Thank you, Senator Meyer, Representative McMahon and the Committee on Children. I'll be very brief because most of my concerns, which originate in the way the bill was drafted, have already been, I think, fairly clearly addressed.

I am here to support the concept of Raised Senate Bill 162 and I'm very pleased that the Committee has elected to raise the bill.

It was interesting for me to think back as a newly elected Legislator one of the very first issues that I had to deal with was exactly the issue that will be, I believe, properly addressed by this bill.

I did have concerns when I read the first bill about the language because I agree with the discussion that you've given us since its original drafting that it should be more properly referenced as adding the language to the State Statute 10-220 and I agree with that.

I'm pleased to see that you're way ahead of me in that analysis. Thank you, and as I said, I'll be very brief.

I believe these provisions will support parents, administrators and most of all our children very well and I urge the Committee to proceed with the bill and adopt the substitute language. Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you, Representative Ritter. We also have a written statement from you for our records as well.

REP. ELIZABETH B. RITTER: Yes, you do.

SEN. MEYER: Are there any questions to Representative Ritter? Thank you so much. I don't see our next two public witnesses here. Senator Edith Prague. Edith, are you here? No. Senator Rob Kane.

Senator Kane telephoned in and indicated that he would be coming in at around 10 o'clock. Representative Sawyer, you're not on the list I have, but we'd be very happy to hear from you. Representative Pam Sawyer.

REP. PAMELA Z. SAWYER: Good morning and thank you, Sir, for tucking me in. That works so well. Ten years of teaching, 12 years of board of education experience and 16 years up here on the Education Committee and the excitement of having been an at-home mother for 12 years, I can tell you that I have had experience with home schooling, not personally, but professionally and elected.

When I wrap it around the concept of creating legislation, the one thing I would beg this Committee to do is to keep it as simple as possible.

What I don't think we want to do is to create a situation where families have to have legal counsel, where families have to notate in their letter 10-220 or 10-184, whatever it is, within their letter, otherwise it gets rejected, that type of thing.

Keeping it as simple as possible I think allows for more flexibility. If you want to get some of the best information about what has happened in the school systems, one of the people that you perhaps might want to talk to are the superintendents' secretaries, their executive assistants, because they've taken the brunt of much of the conflict that has gone on and they can also tell you much of the success stories.

They have had an opportunity lots of time to follow up with the families and their history as well. I will say one thing and I'll be very blunt myself about this, is that no public school is right for every child.

We do the best we can and sometimes we do a fabulous job. Sometimes we fall down on the job. I'll never forget about four years ago in Education, perhaps Senator Freedman will nod her head at this one also, we had a home schooling hearing in which I recognized a few people that are here today from that hearing, and we had two students come up and testify.

One of the young gals was 16 years old. She was doing her graduate work at Western University because she had graduated from the home before Western, I believe, and she had started college at age 11.

Then the next little gal that came up, and she wasn't very tall, so I'm going to use that as a true statement, she was the young lady's sister. She had a big grin on her face and she said I started college at ten.

To watch Representative Larry Cafero as his jaw dropped and say how wonderful it was to speak to them and realize that he was out-intellected, was just a wonderful exchange with these young people and to have them come forward and testify was just a remarkable story.

I can tell you that we would not probably be able to have done as well for these young people as the home situation that their family was able to give them.

I could tell you a couple stories that I do know that in talking with school administrators, I represent four towns and each town does it a little bit differently.

The best description was by one town is that it is flexible in how a parent is able to withdraw their child because it has depended on what the situation was.

In the case where a family was going to be touring the country because of an occupation of one of the parents and they wanted to take the children with them and they decided to on-the-road school these children.

It was very flexible as to how the school system handled that. In the case where there was a school phobia of a third-grader who was very, very ill, physically ill from having to go to school, but when she didn't go to school she was just fine.

It was the physician that recommended the home schooling and the child was withdrawn for three years, home schooled and came back in the middle school and things were just fine. It was the right time for that child to be home schooled.

Other situations where children have been home schooled their entire careers have been the right opportunity. We do the best we can in the educational field in the public arena, but I will tell you from my position, I am very grateful for what is done in the private arena and what is done in the home schooling arena.

I would like to thank this Committee for taking this on because we have wrestled with it in the Education Committee and thank you for taking this on first.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you, Representative Sawyer. Are there any questions of the Representative? No? Good job.

REP. MCMAHON: I just want to say you're totally correct on the secretaries. Always go to the secretaries. Thank you, Ma'am.

REP. PAMELA Z. SAWYER: Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: I did want to ask you, did Representative Cafero really say he was out-intellected?

REP. PAMELA Z. SAWYER: I will get a transcript for you.

SEN. MEYER: That would be fun to have that acknowledgment.

REP. PAMELA Z. SAWYER: These were some of the most impressive students you could imagine, and the fact that they were testifying in public on top of that was just wonderful to hear.

SEN. MEYER: Thanks. I believe that Senator Edith Prague came into the room and she's on our list of public officials. Senator Prague.

SEN. EDITH PRAGUE: Good morning, Senator Meyer and Members of the Select Committee on Children. For the record, I'm Senator Edith Prague from the 19^th District and I'm here to testify in support of Raised Senate Bill 162, AN ACT CONCERNING THE WITHDRAWAL OF A CHILD FROM ENROLLMENT IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL.

As a parent, as a grandparent, as a former schoolteacher, nothing is more precious to parents than their children.

I firmly believe that parents know what's best for their children and if some kids need to be home schooled, those parents should be allowed to do so without any interference or without any hassle from the school administration.

Not all of our schools have programs that fit every child. Yesterday I read the article in the Hartford Courant and was very impressed with those parents, I think they had four or five children, and the mother continues to do home schooling.

But what her kids have accomplished, the two oldest ones are in college, it's remarkable and it's dedication to your family.

Mothers could go out and work and earn money, but instead these mothers choose to stay home and home school their kids and it's to their credit. I'm fully supportive of this legislation.

I think it's a wonderful thing for us to do and it certainly takes the hassle away from the parents having to deal with administrations that may not be supportive. Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you, Senator Prague. Are there any questions of Senator Prague? Thank you for giving us clear testimony.

SEN. EDITH PRAGUE: Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: I think the members of the public who are here should note that we have had significant bipartisan support for this bill. Both Democratic and Republican Legislators have indicated support and that's a good sign.

That indicates that this bill is likely to be approved by the Children's Committee and from there will go to another Committee, the Education Committee, where it has had some problems in the past.

You may want to get in touch with Members of the Education Committee to talk to them about your own views. Our final public witness is not here. I don't think Senator Kane is here. We'll come back to him.

The first witness from the public is Deborah Stevenson. Ms. Stevenson has been involved with this issue for many years. She is the Executive Director of the National Home Education Legal Defense. I've had the privilege of meeting her before. It's nice to see you, Ms. Stevenson.

DEBORAH STEVENSON: It's nice to see you, Senator.

SEN. MEYER: Push your button.

DEBORAH STEVENSON: I thought it was on. Thank you again, and Committee Members as well, for going back to the original bill. I think that's crucial. My testimony, however, will go into some detail about why I think the new version of the bill is not appropriate.

If you could bear with me on that, I'd appreciate it, okay? By the way, thank you, Senator Meyer, for coming to our legislative forum. That was very important and all of us in the community appreciate that.

I believe it was the intent of this Committee to adopt Representative O'Neill's bill as proposed, but as I said, I'm opposing the current language of that bill and do want to support the previous language of the bill as represented by Representative O'Neill.

That language also, I might add, had gone before the Legislative Commissioner's Office in 2007 verbatim and was approved by the Legislative Commissioner's Office at that time. So I don't think that there should be any reason why the language should not be approved this time around.

Also I would note in the new version of the language there is one provision that I do not address in my written testimony that has to do with Section 10-220, and there's an underlying portion when it does amend Section 10-220 stating as amended by this Act unless such child is withdrawn from school in accordance with the provisions of said section.

That section also has to be removed because it would preclude people who are already home schooling and it might be open to misinterpretation that a school district might ask someone who has never been enrolled in the school to then withdraw.

So that's another issue. If you do look at that version, please make sure that that is not in there as well. The purpose of the original bill was to respect the rights of parents who already have the right to withdraw from a public school.

The purpose of the bill, as it's written today, the new version, is to compel school districts. I'm sorry. The old version is to compel school districts to unconditionally acknowledge and respect the right of parents when they exercise their right to withdraw children from a public school.

Parents should not have to fear the loss of custody of their children simply because they exercise the right that they have to withdraw from a public school. Some of these families are here today and will be telling you their stories of abuse at the hands of the public school system.

There are about 40 families who have come to me in the past year alone who have reported that they were threatened or actually were reported to the Department of Children and Families simply because they refused to comply with the demand that was unlawful or because they were withdrawing their child from the public school after they refused [Gap in testimony. Changing from Tape 1A to Tape 1B.]

--some cases do remain open. In all the cases that are closed, the allegation was found in the end to be unsubstantiated or withdrawn or overturned, but not before the families suffer through months of trauma, litigation and financial burdens.

The fact of the matter today is if you send your letter of withdrawal to the public school, the public school administrators keep your children on the enrollment books and then report them to DCF for truancy.

Not all districts, but as you can plainly see, in many districts across the state. I would urge you to take a look at that map. This is what must stop. We need to end these battles between parents and school districts.

We need to end the use of DCF as a nuclear weapon against these parents. While the new version of Senate Bill 162 contains some components of Representative O'Neill's bill, it does completely change the meaning, intent and purpose of Representative O'Neill's bill.

As Senate Bill 162 is currently written, I urge the Committee Members to reject it and instead amend it to accurately reflect the language in Representative O'Neill's bill. Here are a few of the reasons why the current version should be rejected.

Number one, Representative O'Neill's bill amended Connecticut General Statute 10-220, duties of boards of education. It put the burden on them to accept the parents' letter. Senate Bill 162 as re-written amends 10-184, the duty of parents and places conditions on them.

Instead of Senate Bill 162 directing boards of education to accept the withdrawal of parents, it now directs parents to comply with certain directives before the board of education may allow parents to withdraw their children and that's key.

In the new version the language they may withdraw is key to the whole problem because right now parents have always had the right to withdraw their children without question.

This new language creates authority that has not existed in 350 years granting the public school system the authority to determine when a child is able to be withdrawn.

That's a parent's right, not the school district's right. The language in the bill, the new version, says if the parent elects, and I think Representative O'Neill did a good job of explaining this, if the parent elects to provide the required instruction, such person may withdraw such child from school.

Again, that grants the authority to the school. It should be on the parents. Parents always have had that authority. The language in Representative O'Neill's bill was clear and direct.

This new version will only give rise to more of the same, more misinterpretation and more battles that we've had before with parents having to hire lawyers to protect their rights, a protracted legal battle with the school system costing the school system taxpayer dollars and it's totally unnecessary to wage these battles.

This is what we're seeking to end in a very, very simple bill. The language that was originally intended would go a long way to send a clear message to the local boards of education to respect the existing rights of parents.

Senate Bill 162 as it's currently written is not the bill that Representative O'Neill originally proposed and it's not the bill that parents originally supported.

We urge you to amend this bill to adopt Representative O'Neill's language and return to the original intent and purpose of this bill, an intent and purpose we believe the Committee Members originally wanted to retain.

Please vote against any form of this bill that has the new language and please vote for the original language in the bill.

And by the way just as a side note, I home schooled my two daughters until they entered college and, unfortunately as Representative Sawyer said, those were my kids who made that embarrassing comment years ago.

I do want to say that my older daughter, Samantha, has her master's degree in astrophysics at the age of 19. She's currently working on her Ph.D. in climatology.

My younger daughter, Cassandra, received her first Bachelor's degree in justice and law administration, her second bachelor's degree in interactive digital design and she's currently in the work force and she's here today.

Home schooling my children was a wonderfully enjoyable and successful experience. Mine is not the only wonderful, enjoyable and successful home schooling experience.

Parents have been instructing their children successfully in this state since the inception of the colony and they will continue to do so for many years to come. Thank you very much.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you, Ms. Stevenson. By the way, we have a rule here that testimony is limited to three minutes and you are such a knowledgeable person on this issue and our bell was broken.

DEBORAH STEVENSON: I cheated.

SEN. MEYER: We permitted you to continue and if too many witnesses come we often reduce that period of time from three minutes to two minutes, but as usual you've been very helpful. You've been a strong advocate for home schooling for many years. Are there any questions of Ms. Stevenson? Any comments? Thank you.

DEBORAH STEVENSON: Thank you very much.

SEN. MEYER: Our next witness is Judy Aron. Good morning, Ms. Aron.

JUDY ARON: Good morning, Chairmen Meyer and McMahon and other respected Committee Members. My name is Judy Aron and I'm the Research Director of National Home Education Legal Defense. I have successfully home schooled my three children through K to 12^th.

One has graduated from Boston University and currently works in New Haven as a transportation analyst.

One is working through his junior year at Wentworth Institute of Technology studying computer networking and my youngest is 16 and recently made the Dean's List at Taconic Community College.

I withdrew my oldest two children from public school 11 years ago without any question to my ability or authority as a parent and with just a letter from me and my husband to their school.

Thankfully, our family never encountered any problems when we parted ways. It is a shame to me that we now have to have a statute put in place to enforce the rights the parents have always had in the past just to ensure that schools do not abuse their authority.

I'm here today to speak to you about Senate Bill 162, AN ACT CONCERNING THE WITHDRAWAL OF A CHILD FROM ENROLLMENT IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL. I support this legislation if, and only if, the original language proposed by Representative O'Neill is in place.

You are all very hard-working and engaged Legislators, and so I think you can appreciate the importance of making sure proposed legislation does what it is intended and carefully crafted to do.

Representative O'Neill has worked long and hard with parents to create language which will solve a terrible problem which has been burdening and costly to parents, school systems and DCF alike in the past few years.

It makes it very clear how a parent can satisfy their duty to educate their child by withdrawing their child from public school to educate them without harassment and hindrance by public school officials and by stating that what parents must do to withdraw their child is to provide a signed letter of withdrawal to the school district and that the school district must accept the letter and immediately dis-enroll that child.

It is not the place of public schools to give approval for parents to withdraw their child from school, rather it is the parents' decision to withdraw their child, which must be respected and adhered to, by the school.

The Department of Education and school administrators are under the false notion that it is their obligation under the law to educate all children. Actually, the State Constitution does not say that at all.

What the state is mandated to do, as was brought out by Sheff v. O'Neill lawsuit was that the state must provide an equal opportunity to receive an adequate education. That's it.

Additionally, the state has nothing whatsoever to do with educating all children, only those enrolled in their system. Parents have always had the right to dis-enroll their children from that system without question.

In the words of Governor Rick Perry of Texas, every child is entitled to a public education, but public education is not entitled to every child.

With regard to the language of this proposed statute, I implore you to JF this bill as was originally proposed by Representative O'Neill and to make quite sure that it is not amended or changed or watered down along the way.

It is imperative that a parent's right to dis-enroll their child not be turned into merely a request that awaits approval from others who are not parents or guardians of the children.

Erosion of parental rights in this manner would be a grievous injustice and I believe that is not the result that you all seek here today.

We must not only do this to protect parental rights, but we must do this to end the coercive and heavy-handed tactics by schools which end up wasting precious tax dollars on unnecessary litigation and which also waste time and resources in the Department of Children and Family with false allegations of educational neglect made by these same schools and administrators.

This practice, as you will hear, causes unnecessary financial burdens and trauma to a family. It needs to stop and you have the power to stop it.

Passing this legislation will strengthen a parent's right to make a clean cut between a school and their children so that they can part ways and do what it is their duty to do as parents as outlined by Connecticut General Statute 10-184.

I close by asking you please amend this bill with the original language as put forth by Representative O'Neill and if you cannot do that, then I would prefer that this bill be killed now with its imperfections and incorrect and damaging language because this should be done the right way the first time and not create unintended consequences.

Nor should it serve to erode a parent's right to dictate how and when their child should be educated. Thank you so much and we really appreciate you putting attention to this matter.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you, Ms. Aron. Are there any questions of this witness? Yes.

REP. MCMAHON: I just want to assure you and for everyone else here, they can put to rest that it will not be changed. It will be the original bill that was presented to us by Representative O'Neill. That's a given.

JUDY ARON: Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SEN. MEYER: I just want to be sure that everybody understands that the bill that this Committee asked to be heard today, we call it raising. We raised the bill. It was Representative O'Neill's bill and the bill drafter took some discretion there, and we're not supporting that.

JUDY ARON: Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you again, Ms. Aron.

JUDY ARON: Thank you very much.

SEN. MEYER: Our next witness is David Preusch. Is that pronunciation right?

DAVID PREUSCH: Preusch.

SEN. MEYER: David Preusch.

DAVID PREUSCH: That's close.

SEN. MEYER: Good morning, Mr. Preusch.

DAVID PREUSCH: Good morning and thank you for allowing me to speak. I'll go as fast as I can. My name is David Preusch. My wife Sharon and I are lifelong residents of Connecticut and have resided in Trumbull, Connecticut, for 30 years where we have raised three children.

We both attended public schools and we both have university degrees. I am an architect by profession and am principal of my own firm in Westport. We have always been law-abiding, taxpaying citizens. We always vote.

We are regular people. We have also become home-schooling parents by necessity and not by choice due to the problems that we encountered with the Trumbull public school system. Public school was fine for our two older children.

Our youngest son Will, however, has been diagnosed with functional abdominal pain and public school, we discovered, can become a hellish place for a child with a disability.

We found that when a parent attempts to advocate for their child, the public school staff can go from being benevolent educators to a paranoid and deceitful bureaucracy obsessed with control of parents and children and who arrogantly violate their own policies and state statutes with virtually no fear of accountability and seemingly no crises of conscience as to the blame-worthiness of their actions.

Will's problems began with bullying. His symptoms were severe gastrointestinal distress brought on by anxiety and fear of being in school. Two years ago, our advocacy regarding his few accommodations was ignored and he lasted barely a month in school.

His pediatrician suggested a therapist who sent us to a psychiatrist. He was put by her in succession on two psychotropic anti-depressants, Paxil and Trazodone, whose side effects include panic, depression, agitation and sleep disorder.

Public humiliations at the hands of his teacher, increased anxiety, intestinal distress and the effects of these drugs contributed to a cycle that an 11-year-old boy simply could not control.

Despite this, his therapist insisted that he be in school, even if he had to spend all day in the nurse's office. Violating numerous legal parental rights, the school presented this as a 504 plan. It lasted one week.

This was followed by clear signs of depression, uncontrollable shaking, vomiting, diarrhea and the notion that he hated his life, while we kept him home until he was weaned off the drugs.

The school called a PPT with no prior notice to us and presented a special education plan. He would receive no instruction. He would be kept in a resource room. Recess or contact with peers was not allowed unless he was in class.

He was to be on school grounds no matter how sick he was, even if he had to spend all day in the school's bathroom, had to be carried in kicking and screaming as had other students, or had to spend all day in the car outside as another student and parent had been doing for the entire month of February.

The principal raised the threat of a report to DCF because of his absences. We removed Will from the Trumbull public school system on March 8, 2006 by letter stating that our son will be instructed according to Law 10-184. The next afternoon a DCF investigative social worker--

SEN. MEYER: Mr. Preusch, I'm sorry to interrupt but we do have a three-minute rule here and you're into about five minutes. You're not even halfway through your written testimony, which we have. I'm going to ask if you would summarize your testimony and complete it. Thank you.

DAVID PREUSCH: All right. To summarize, we were reported to the DCF three days after a PPT meeting. The DCF worker showed up and verbally attacked and terrorized my children. The school had made a false report to the DCF, falsely reporting that all 38 of Will's absences were unexcused.

The investigation turned out to be totally unsubstantiated and I might add that the school guarantees an investigation by also reporting that my wife was alleged to have Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy, and I might just add that there seems to be an epidemic of this in the State of Connecticut among parents that have been reported.

I can't say right now that we were not confirmed that our son was un-enrolled by the superintendent of schools. He merely said that he had been advised that we would be home schooling.

To this date, I don't know, frankly, that we are un-enrolled because we continue to receive calls from the school system as to our intentions regarding Will.

I'll just close by saying that my son has been home schooled for two years now and he is thriving. He has had no therapy, no psychiatric treatment, no drugs. Thank you.

SEN. MEYER: Thank you. No questions. Our next witness is Isabelle Hall-Gustafson. Good morning, Ms. Hall-Gustafson.

ISABELLE HALL-GUSTAFSON: Good morning. I'm so glad to see that there is bipartisan help and everyone is all into this. I gave you my written testimony. Because it's so long, I'm going to try to condense it for you.

SEN. MEYER: Yes, please, three minutes.

ISABELLE HALL-GUSTAFSON: There's a lot that went on so I'm going to try to condense it. My name is Isabelle Hall-Gustafson. I am a resident of Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

I am in favor of Senate Bill 162, as everyone as stated, the way it was originally stated by Representative O'Neill in the language.

My family and I are prime examples as to why this is desperately needed. We were put through a nightmare while my husband was deployed overseas with the military police unit he was with.

I, in turn, had to deal with all of this turmoil and chaos on my own because he was stuck out there and was furious about it, but could not help us in any way.

I was in constant contact with the school as far as letters from doctors, notes, and even had a 504 plan in place for all the numerous health issues he had.

Basically to the point, if he was out one day I would go pick up work. I would have him do it and I would even scan it on my computer and e-mail it to the guidance counselor. There was always communication since day one.

At one point I asked if there was any way, since he was doing all of this testing and everything else, if there was a way that I could pay for myself a tutor for him just to get him caught up so he wouldn't get frustrated.

He loves school and I didn't want him getting frustrated. They said no, that unless he had ten consecutive days in a row that he was out, that was not possible. So I continued to get the work, continued to get him to make it up.

He would work on weekends, even sick, trying to catch up with the work. When it came to a point where he came down with a bug that everyone had in school and was out consecutive ten days with an asthma attack at the same time, then they called DCF and said he was truant, without even telling me, which to me was appalling since I called them every time something was wrong.

I even gave the nurse a list of every test date he had coming. So, in turn, I had DCF at my house, basically traumatizing my child for two hours of drilling and then at that point I had no idea of what I should be doing because I had tried everything.

Notes to show that he wasn't lying. Come to find out, I turned around and went to the school after awhile and said look, I've given you letters. I've done everything. What do you want me to do? Home school this child since obviously nothing is working.

You're not abiding by the 504 plan or anything else. She said you had that option since day one. I said, well, why didn't anybody tell me this instead of traumatizing this child and she said we frown against stating those facts because then it would look like we wouldn't want to teach him.

So in turn, we went through turmoil. The day before my husband came back, after I had contacted Governor Rell because I was so disgusted. I said my husband is fighting for your rights and freedoms and mine are being abused.

So I called Governor Rell. She set up a meeting with my lawyer, attorney Deborah Stevenson, and their lawyers and their aide and DCF Commissioner Hamilton and come to find out the day before my husband came home from his deployment, it was reversed as unsubstantiated, but the school continued to harass us saying they were in their rights to have a PPT meeting.

So we ended up hiring a court reporter, which I have here if anyone wants to see, because the facts were being distorted. Then they didn't want to hold the meeting. I said, well look, I'm not rescheduling this. This is absurd.

He's been withdrawn. I've even waited until they stamped the withdrawal on April 30, and they're saying they're in their rights. All they wanted was a psych eval on my child.

My child was already seeing a counselor for stressing out from what the board of education and the DCF investigation had put him through. So at this point I find it totally appalling, especially when I hear that everyone knows that I've done everything.

And I've called Superintendent Little, Gregory Little, and told him that I needed assistance. I said this is who you call I suppose when you can't get anywhere with the administration because the superintendent said that he was not going to accept, I'm sorry, the principal said he wasn't going to accept any more notes excusing him from school since he didn't believe us.

But yet my child had a colonoscopy because the school nurse, four times he went to the school nurse, telling her he felt like fainting and he was extreme pain, sent him back to the classroom, did not call us and he ended up having gastrointestinal bleeding at the emergency room.

So I am appalled that this is even going on. To be put through this on a normal basis with your husband being deployed is appalling in itself, but to be put through the harassment afterwards, even though it's been unsubstantiated, to still have to go to PPTs and have to hire a court reporter is appalling.

I'm hoping that this bill goes through the way it was originally stated to stop all this playing of the words not being right and then having a loophole to go through to keep this harassment going on.

I mean it'