Author: Barbara Dragon

SB 228 – Student Right to Privacy bill. NHN supported this bill. However, the Senate Education Committee was not willing to bring the bill for a vote and instead agreed to amend two protective sentences into another “student privacy bill”. A sentence declaring that a student’s personally identifiable information and data “belongs” to the student was amended into SB 463. SB 463 was passed by the Senate. However, this protective language was DELETED by amendment by the Assembly Education Committee as was other protective language in the bill. A very watered down version of SB 463 was passed by the Assembly and “concurred with” by the Senate.

SB 25 – NHN opposed Section 2 of the original bill that authorized the Superintendent to “coordinate education programs for children from “Birth to Prekindergarten” was deleted. A modified version of SB 25 was passed and signed by the Governor. See “As Enrolled” by clicking the bill number.

SB 126 – NHN opposed language calling for “regulation and evaluation” of “any early childhood education and prekindergarten programs at both private and public schools”. NHN also opposed language in the bill allowing public school officials to “conduct a survey AT THE HOME of child whose primary language is not English”. In both cases the problematic language was removed by amendment. However, the amended bill was never brought for a vote and “died” in committee.

SB 117 – A bill adding two new vaccinations required for “school enrollment” also died in committee.

AB 221 – This bill does not affect homeschooling but was a “companion” bill to SB 463. The bill was intended to protect public school student information and data collected by the public school, the school district and the Department of Education but in reality was only a “sunshine bill”; meaning the DOE and local school districts must tell parents what info/data is being collected on their child and allow for “corrections” to the information/data to be made, as requested by the parent or student over the age of 18. Here again, there were many amendments houses to this bill before it was eventually passed and signed into law by the Governor.

SB 302 – The Educational Savings Account (ESA) bill made a surprise appearance on April 3rd. The bill was scheduled for hearing just before the deadline for bills to be heard in committee (if not heard they die). It was a “surprise” because the original bill was nearly totally rewritten by the sponsor of the bill, Senator Hammond, just prior to the meeting. NHN Officers had gone on record with Senator Hammond requesting that he protect HOMESCHOOL FREEDOM. However, although NHN Officers had been in constant contact with Senator Hammond on other bills he never informed us of his intent to use the homeschool law as a “vehicle” for students to receive tax-payer money from the state and the “controls” that go with it. Thankfully, Elissa Wahl was in attendance the day of the hearing and “opposed” the bill as written. NHN was able to work with Senator Hammond to protect those parents who DO NOT wish to receive money from the state. More information on the effect of this bill to be posted.

SB 228 did have a work session in the Senate Education Committee on Friday. However, due to the “complexities” of the bill it was not going to pass, so at our request, Section 1, subsections 1 and 2b were amended into SB 463, another student data bill.

We wish to thank Senators Gustavson and Denis for finding a way to get a pupil’s constitutional right to privacy regarding their student records hopefully put into statute. These are the two sections from which a new amendment will be written,

Section 1. Chapter 392 of NRS is hereby amended by adding thereto a new section to read as follows:
1. The legislature hereby declares that all personally identifiable information as well as the
education record of a pupil is protected as a right to privacy under the Constitution of Nevada and the Constitution of the United States. This act shall be called The Pupil Information Privacy Protection Act of 2015.
2. (b) Be deemed the property of the pupil who is the subject of that information if the pupil
is 18 years old or is under the age of 18 and is legally emancipated from the pupil’s parents, or the parent or guardian of the pupil if the pupil is under the age of 18.

SB 463 received a unanimous “Do Pass” and goes to the Senate floor for a vote. That may take a few days since the LCB is backlogged on adding amendments to bill.

We’ll do our best to keep you informed as quickly as possible on the progress of this bill as moves through the process.

Barbara Dragon

Thank you to those who called or emailed on Thursday regarding SB 228 (notice put out on NV-Alert)! But we need to keep up the full court press.

If you have not already called or email Senate Education Committee members, about SB 228, please do so on MONDAY! We met with all committee members, except Senators Segerblom and Lipparelli (their schedules didn’t allow) on Thursday regarding asking Chairwoman Becky Harris to give SB 228 a work session THIS WEEK. If the bill is not passed out of committee by Friday it will die. All committee members were responsive to our meetings and said they’d speak to the Committee Chair.

Please take a moment tonight to email committee members or call/email tomorrow.
See the HSLDA E-lert for contact information. http://www.hslda.org/elert/archive/elertarchive.aspx?7473

We must protect student privacy rights!

Barbara Dragon
ParentalRights.org/NEVADA Legislative Liaison

Good news from the NSHE Vice Chancellor for Academic & Student Affairs: “After reviewing Nevada Revised Statute 396.930, NSHE Legal Counsel determined that the core curriculum for home schooled students is not required under the statute.”

As a result the Homeschool Application for the Millennium Scholarship has been revised eliminating the request for proof of “core curriculum requirements” in Section VI. The new form can be found athttps://nevadatreasurer.gov/documents/millennium/Form-NoDiploma.pdf .

In addition, we were able to convince the NV State Treasurer’s Office (Millennium Scholarship) to correct and revise the MS Application for clarity so that future misunderstandings about who can apply and what the homeschool student needs to do to qualify for the scholarship is perfectly clear. To that end, the word “or” has been added to Section III of the application form between these two questions:

Did you obtain a GED?…

OR

Did you complete a homeschool program?…

Now it should be abundantly clear to all that homeschooled students DO NOT need to take the GED to qualify for the Nevada Millennium Scholarship.

We appreciate both the NSHE staff and NV State Treasurer’s MS staff for working with NHN to assure that all qualified homeschool students have the opportunity to apply for the scholarship.

Barbara Dragon

NHN Officer

For those of you with homeschool students who are graduating this year and plan to apply for the Millennium Scholarship (for use at NV Community Colleges, Universities and the State College) there is a “NEW” application form for homeschool students posted on the NV State Treasurer’s office website that we believe to be incorrect.

Thanks to the sharp eye of a homeschool mom who downloaded the application and alerted me of her concern, the following was found; in Section VI – Checklist of Requirements item # 2 has been added this year:

__ I have enclosed proof that I have met the core curriculum requirements as established by the Board of Regents for the graduating class of 2009 and after. (4 units of Math (including Algebra II); 4 units of English; 3 units of Natural Science; 3 units of Social Science and History)

NHN believes this requirement to be incorrect for students who did not graduate from a public or private high school in Nevada (homeschooled student or GED student). We have put a call into Board of Regents for clarification in this matter. Regent Ron Knecht has asked that our question be sent to their legal department for review. We hope to have answer soon.

Since your student won’t be applying for the Scholarship until May or June, depending on when they graduate, there is nothing to do at this time. This matter should be resolved by the time you need a correct application form.

We will keep you posted,

Barbara Dragon

NHN Officer