CT Homeschool Bill Passes House, Heads to Senate

The Connecticut House passed a bill Thursday requiring annual school enrollment declarations from all parents and a one-time child welfare check for families starting homeschool, sending the legislation to the Senate on a 96-53 vote.

House Bill 5468 has drawn fierce resistance from homeschool advocates at every stage of the legislative process. Thursday’s floor session was no exception. Education Committee Ranking Member Rep. Lezlye Zupkus, R-Prospect, spent hours questioning committee co-Chair Rep. Jennifer Leeper, D-Fairfield, line by line through the bill’s text before Democrats, who held the votes, moved the legislation forward.

The bill cleared the chamber only after Democrats trimmed it further through a floor amendment.

Under H.B. 5468, all Connecticut parents would need to declare annually where they plan to enroll their children, regardless of whether they homeschool. If a parent then chooses to begin homeschooling, the state would run a one-time check to determine whether anyone in the household has an open case with the Department of Children and Families or appears on Connecticut’s child abuse and neglect registry. Anyone flagged in that check would not be permitted to homeschool.

That’s a significant shift from current state law, which requires parents to notify a school district just once in writing when withdrawing a child from the system, with no DCF review.

Proponents have connected that gap in oversight to several child abuse cases, including the discovery last fall of the body of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia.

“This bill proposes modest steps to build a safety net for children and identify people who are not, in good faith, homeschooling their children, but using our previous lack of regulation to hide child abuse and neglect,” Leeper said at the start of Thursday’s floor debate.

Not all Democrats were immediately comfortable with the measure. Rep. Anthony Nolan, D-New London, acknowledged the bill’s difficult path to passage but ultimately urged his colleagues to get behind it. “Initially, this bill was very hard to swallow. But we did work on this bill to make it better,” Nolan said.

Dozens of homeschool advocates gathered at the Capitol before the vote. Most declined to speak with reporters.

Not Olivia Tummescheit.

Tummescheit, a former homeschooled student now enrolled at CT State Community College Capital, stood outside holding a sign inviting questions. She told CT Mirror that the legislation misidentifies who is actually at risk. “This particular bill is not really fixable,” she said. Her central objection: the bill attempts to screen for child abuse by targeting families who choose to homeschool, rather than by looking at factors that research and child welfare experts associate with elevated risk.

“I feel like this bill is trying to address a valid concern, but it’s sorting for the wrong demographic,” Tummescheit said.

She argued the state should screen children for abuse based on household risk factors, things like the presence of a stepparent, substance use by a caregiver, or other circumstances that cut across all school enrollment choices, not just homeschooling.

What this means for Connecticut families

Connecticut has an estimated tens of thousands of homeschooling families, and H.B. 5468 would touch every parent in the state through the annual enrollment declaration requirement, not just those who opt out of traditional schools. The Connecticut State Department of Education tracks homeschool notifications under the current system but has no statutory authority to cross-reference those records with DCF.

For families in Fairfield County and the Hartford suburbs, where homeschooling often reflects deliberate educational choices rather than efforts to evade oversight, the bill’s critics say the one-size approach creates unnecessary friction. Supporters counter that the checks are narrow and that the status quo has left too many children invisible to the state.

The bill now moves to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain timeline. The Connecticut General Assembly’s regular session runs through early June, giving senators roughly six weeks to take up the measure, amend it further, or let it sit. Senate Democrats hold a majority, but the bill’s contentious House debate signals that passage is not guaranteed.

Leeper, who shepherded the bill through the Education Committee and managed Thursday’s floor session, will likely need to continue negotiating with colleagues in both chambers who want either more oversight or less. The homeschool community has shown it can mobilize quickly, and advocates say they plan to bring that same pressure to bear on the Senate.