One bill affecting homeschool parents amended.
Second bill affecting alternatives to traditional high school amended to insure freedom.
• AB 171 – Section 10 of the bill affecting homeschool law was amended per our request and signed to law by Governor Sandoval
Recap:
o AB 171 opened up the homeschool law (NRS 392.700) to add a requirement for parents to “un-notify” when no longer home-schooling. The issue arose from a DOE audit that revealed a few students were listed as both homeschooled and enrolled in a virtual charter school. The simple fix is to require the virtual charter school to notify the school district where the child was homeschooled that the child is now enrolled in the charter school. However, this bill required both the parent and the charter school to notify the school district which we believed to be redundant and burdensome to the parent.
o Per our written request, Dr. Rheault sought an amendment to AB 171 removing the parent requirement and leaving the responsibility with the charter school to notify the local school district of a previously homeschooled enrolling in their school. The section of concern to us in the bill was amended by the Assembly Ed. Committe. A copy of the NHN letter, dated 3/24/11 and sent to Assembly Ed. Committee regarding AB171 is posted on our website under the “Alerts” tab.
• AB 138 – One section this bill was ammended per our request; passed both the Assembly and Senate and was signed by the Governor
Recap:
o AB 138 was a “public school bill”. However, HSLDA observed that this bill sought to remove three laws instituted in 1956, NRS392.090, 392.100, & 392.110 that made provisions for a child to leave school after completing the 8th grade.
o Although rarely used, NHN believed these laws to be a “freedom” issue for those public school students who would be better served in an apprenticeship situation or full-time employment rather than attending public high school. We submitted a letter, dated 2/20/11 and attended the hearing on AB138 (letter posted on our “Alerts”) asking the Assembly Education Committee to NOT repeal these three laws.
o The committee amended the bill by not repealing the third law, NRS 392.110. NHN believes this may be of benefit to some 15-18 year olds in the future though it does not affect homeschooling directly.