CHAP Legislative Update – as of July 2022

Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee

Read and reviewed 102 pieces of proposed legislation this term.

Twenty bills have been submitted to the committee since our last update. One of interest to homeschoolers is SB 1230, which provides recipients of the Nellie Bly Scholarship to be high school graduates or its equivalent, making it available to homeschool graduates. On Tuesday, May 24, 2022, the Senate Committee considered representative Topper’s HB 1041.

Pennsylvania House Education Committee

Read and reviewed 257 pieces of legislation this term.

Thirty-five bills have been submitted to the committee.  HB 2497 will have interest to homeschoolers. It is the House version of the Nellie Bly Scholarship as described in SB 1230.

Unsworn Declaration

In April of 2020, in response to the COVID pandemic, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania added the “unsworn declaration” to be used in place of a notarized affidavit (sworn declaration) in many instances, including the homeschool affidavit.  According to the statute, an “unsworn declaration” is a declaration in a signed record not given under oath but given under penalty of perjury. CHAP has added a sample unsworn declaration to homeschoolpennsylvania.org that can be used in place of the notarized affidavit.

2022 CHAP Homeschool Convention

Each year, CHAP invites Pennsylvania Legislators to visit the convention. This year, Senator Doug Mastriano presented a session at the 2022 CHAP Convention at the York Expo Center titled “Your Life Matters.” Senator Mastriano, a homeschool dad, shared his view in support of educational freedom and parental choice. Both he and his wife encouraged homeschool families and invited everyone to be involved in the fight for liberty.

Act 55  

Signed into law July 8, 2022

Act 55 will become effective in the 2023-2024 school year. Act 55 provides additional opportunities for home-educated students to participate in educational programs, co-curricular activities, and career and technical education in their local public school district.

Act 55 originally began as HB 1642 of the 2021 session when it was sponsored by the Honorable Martina White (R) of Philadelphia in June of 2021. The bill was entitled “Assisting Students Who are Economically Disadvantaged.”

In quick fashion on July 7, 2022, the House concurred with the Senate amendments. The bill was referred to the Rules and Executive Nominations Committee and was approved on July 8, 2022; both the House and the Senate signed the bill. On the same day, the bill was presented to Governor Tom Wolfe who signed the bill into law creating Act 55.

What is Act 55 and how will it affect home educated students and families?

Pages 33-37 out of the 131 pages of the bill apply to home-educated students.

First the Act does not become effective until academic year 2023-2024. This information is found in section 1327.1 of the bill…

(F.2)(1) “Requires local public school districts to develop policies and procedures to permit a child who is enrolled in a home education program to participate on the same basis as other students enrolled in the school district in any co-curricular activities that merge with extracurricular activities with a required academic course.”

• The student must meet the eligibility criteria and prerequisites for the class or activity.
• The student must comply with the policies, rules, and regulations of the class and activity.
• The school district must provide the student with a grade which is provided to the supervisor of the home education program and that person shall be responsible for maintaining the material in the student’s portfolio.
• The parent must provide transportation except if the school district is already operating transportation at that time and room is available on the bus.
• The home educated student may participate up to at least one quarter of the school day for fulltime students.

(F.3) (1) Focuses upon home educated students to participate in career and technical education programs.

• Once again, the students must meet the eligibility criteria or their equivalent for participation in the program. The student must comply with all the policies, rules, and regulations of the program.
• The program must provide a grade to the supervisor of the home education program who must maintain that information for the student’s portfolio.
• The parent must provide transportation except if the school district is already operating transportation at that time and room is available on the bus.
• Finally, section (F.4) permits the school district to establish policies that prioritize participation in a course with limited seating.

CHAP did not endorse or oppose this bill as an organization. The CHAP Board is aware of the diverse opinions in favor and in opposition to this bill among the homeschooling families that we have the privilege of serving every day. CHAP believes that each individual family must determine what is proper for their own home education program.

Relationship to HB 1041

As you may be aware, the Honorable Jesse Topper sponsored HB 1041 in the 2021-2022 legislative session entitled the “Homeschool Hybrid Educational Access Act.” That bill passed the House on November 8, 2021, and was referred to the Senate Education Committee the next day. The Senate’s first consideration of the bill was on May 24, 2022. The bill was laid on the table pursuant to Senate Rule 9 on June 22, 2022. The text from HB 1041 was subsequently added to HB 1642 during the amendments process, and so is now part of Act 55.

There are many questions, concerns and issues that will arise from this legislation. CHAP will attempt to respond to your questions as Act 55 becomes effective in school year 2023-2024.