CT Committee Strips Homeschool Oversight From Priority Bill
Connecticut's Appropriations Committee removed a homeschooling oversight provision from Senate Bill 6 without public debate, weeks after a child's death.
The Appropriations Committee quietly stripped a homeschooling oversight provision from a priority Senate bill Monday, making the deletion without debate and without telling the public what had been removed.
Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, the committee’s co-chair, told members that “Section 5” of Senate Bill 6 had been deleted before the vote. She did not say what Section 5 contained. It was the homeschooling provision. The committee then voted to advance the bill to the Senate floor.
The move came two weeks after authorities arrested the father of a child who died after being withdrawn from public school, the second such death reported in roughly a year. Critics of Connecticut’s homeschooling laws have pointed to both cases as evidence that the state’s withdrawal process creates a dangerous gap in child protection.
Under current law, a parent only needs to notify their school district in writing to remove a child from public school. After that letter goes out, the state has no legally mandated contact with the child.
The deleted Section 5 would have required the Connecticut State Department of Education to notify the Department of Children and Families whenever a parent submitted a notice of intent to homeschool. DCF would then check whether any open cases existed involving that child. Supporters argued the measure would flag situations where parents might be pulling children from school to hide abuse, while leaving families with clean records untouched.
The provision ran into trouble early. Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker told lawmakers during a public hearing that the proposal likely violated the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, known as FERPA, which governs how student records can be shared. She warned that if S.B. 6 became law as written, Connecticut could forfeit millions in federal education funding. The Office of Fiscal Analysis reviewed the question and reached the same conclusion.
That FERPA concern does not appear to apply equally to all pending legislation on the subject. Neither Russell-Tucker nor the OFA raised the same objection to House Bill 5468, a separate measure that would create similar oversight requirements for families choosing to homeschool. That bill cleared the Education Committee on a 26-20 vote, a narrow margin that included a handful of Democrats voting no alongside all Republican members. At least one lawmaker switched from no to yes before the vote closed.
H.B. 5468 now heads to the Appropriations Committee. Whether it will survive, and whether the homeschooling language will stay intact, is an open question.
Homeschooling advocates have mounted a sustained campaign against both bills. Thousands submitted written testimony earlier this year. Hundreds traveled to the statehouse for a public hearing. Homeschooled students testified about academic achievements they said exceeded what they would have accomplished in traditional schools. Advocates argue the legislation unfairly treats all homeschooling families as potential bad actors because of crimes committed by a small number of parents who abused the withdrawal system.
That tension sits at the center of the debate. The deaths of children withdrawn from school, including 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, whose body was discovered last year, have given urgency to calls for reform. Advocates for oversight argue that a simple DCF check at the point of withdrawal would catch the most dangerous situations without meaningfully burdening families who have done nothing wrong.
Opponents counter that no evidence connects homeschooling itself to harm, and that subjecting all withdrawing families to a DCF flag punishes an entire community for the acts of a few.
Monday’s committee vote settled nothing. It removed one vehicle for change while another still moves through the process. The legislature’s session deadline adds pressure to an already complicated situation, with disagreements over legal exposure, federal funding and child welfare still unresolved.
For advocates on both sides, the stakes are clear. For families in Fairfield County and across Connecticut who homeschool for entirely legitimate reasons, the outcome of H.B. 5468 will determine whether the state begins treating their decision as something requiring government scrutiny from day one.