After another child abuse case, the judiciary skips the home school regulation bill from the special session. • West Virginia Watch

“It’s a complicated issue because it involves basic parental rights, but also the intersection with the desire to do the right thing for the children,” Del said. JB Akers, R-Kanawha, who represents the area where the 8-year-old girl was found in handcuffs. “I think we also need to start from a place where homeschooling parents are not treated differently just because they chose to homeschool.”

Hamilton said the governor should take the lead on the issue because divisions in the House of Representatives, which includes several homeschool parents, make it difficult to have “productive conversations” on the issue despite the tragedies.

“When you bring it up, people don’t want to discuss anything more rigorous in the context of homeschooling. This is shocking to me when the majority of these people claim they are pro-life. For me, our number one goal is to protect children,” she said. “[Children] have a right to a productive education, but they also have a right to protection. I think we should set some parameters and I also think it should be a bipartisan conversation.”

Public schools are tasked with serving homeschool students

Parents or guardians are required Submit to the district superintendent the academic evaluations of the home-schooled student in grades three, five, eight and 11.

If no documentation is filed, state education law allows local school districts to take action against the family, but is not required to do so.

In West Virginia, more than 30,000 children are homeschooled. State education Data The study, published this year, showed that 57% of homeschooled students submitted required documentation on time. For students likely to be in 11th grade, the number fell to 37%.

Previously, the state schools superintendent was Michele Blatt recommended that requiring school staff to care for missing students could be a step toward solving the problem.

Akers noted that local school districts are likely already overwhelmed with maintaining truant public schools and homeschool student status.

“It’s fair to ask our school board, ‘Do you have the resources to meet the mandates placed on you?'” he said.

Lawmakers could also reconsider the debate over Raylee’s bill, which is included in his latest version would pause or potentially deny a parent’s request for home schooling if a teacher has reported suspected child abuse. The law was named after 8-year-old Raylee Browning. who died of abuse and neglect in 2018 in Fayette County after her parents pulled her out of school.

Akers supported Raylee’s bill, which was included in an amendment during the regular session. The House of Representatives passed The amendment received bipartisan support but was not passed by the Senate.

“I am not afraid that we will see an epidemic of bad faith reports because [teachers] are looking for homeschoolers,” he said, noting that falsely reporting child abuse is a crime.

The special session is expected to focus largely on Justice’s idea for one Reduction in income taxits child and dependent care tax credit and additional allocations of state dollars.

“At the end of the day, if I was told at the eleventh hour that we weren’t going to vote for this…why would we waste our time? If all we want to do is bring people down and have them spend government money and do nothing about this issue, then we don’t need this issue,” Justice said.