Homeschool families gather to object Connecticut bill prosposing more oversight

Hundreds of people came to the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Wednesday to oppose legislation that would increase oversight of homeschool families.  

The bill would, among other changes, require families to show that they are providing education on par with public schools.  

“The regulation kind of takes out the flexibility that makes homeschooling so powerful and so effective,” Hartford parent Jesse Buchanan said.  

The bill is one of several that lawmakers are considering after 11-year-old Jaqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia was found dead in New Britain last year. Two of her family members, including her mother, are facing charges in connection with her death, as well as her mother’s now ex-boyfriend.

Torres-Garcia was pulled from public school while her family was under investigation by the Department of Children and Families (DCF), raising questions about whether the agency missed warning signs.  

“We made a commitment to try to look at all aspects of the system,” Rep. Dave DeFronzo (D-New Britain) said about the oversight proposals.  

DeFronzo is on the Education Committee, which held a public hearing on Wednesday on the instruction equivalent bill.  

Currently, Connecticut requires only that families notify their public school district that they will homeschool a child.  

The bill would require school districts to notify DCF when this happens. If DCF has an active investigation, the family would not be allowed to withdraw their child.  

Additionally, families would have two options to demonstrate they are providing an education on par with public schools: either take a standardized test or submit a summary of lesson plans for review.  

Republicans also have questions about what standard would be set for those evaluations.  

“What is equivalent?” Rep. Lezlye Zupkus (R-Prospect) asked. “Is it equivalent to Bethany, Prospect, Waterbury, Greenwich, or Bridgeport? 

But Acting Child Advocate Christina Ghio reiterated her belief that the state needs greater oversight to ensure that all children receive an adequate education.  

“Literally, the parent just tells the district I’m withdrawing for homeschool, and then nothing happens after that, and we need to remedy that,” Ghio said.  

Former New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart, now running for governor, said the bill was misguided and would not protect children.  

“If it was just focused on [Mimi] then we would be just focusing on children that are under care of DCF and we would be focusing on the failures of DCF,” she said.  

The Children’s Committee is considering a bill that would require more training and transparency from DCF and create an oversight board to recommend further changes to the agency.  

DCF warned the Education Committee that the agency would struggle to process as many as 2,000 notices each year from families withdrawing their children from public schools.  

The bill requires DCF to review all requests within two business days to see if families are the subject of an active investigation, but the agency suggested a window of 10 days.  

Local school boards, meanwhile, said they don’t have the resources to review lesson portfolios submitted by families.  

“We’re very concerned that it creates unworkable administrative mandates on our public schools,” Connecticut Association of Boards of Education Executive Director Patrice McCarthy said.  

DeFronzo said those requirements would not take effect for two or three years, giving the legislature time to find funding to help districts.  

He also said the need was not as much as McCarthy suggests.  

“It’s not going to be a review process where districts are required to give feedback to families and give a critique of what’s been done,” he said.  

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