Pennsylvania House

  • The House ended recess on September 26, 2023.
  • On September 19, 2023, a special election was held for the vacant seat in House district 21, in Allegheny County, an overwhelmingly Democrat stronghold. As a result of the Democrat candidate winning that election, the makeup of the House now stands at 101 Republicans, 102 Democrats.
  • Since our last report, twenty-eight bills have been referred to the House Education Committee. None of the bills apply to the homeschool community.

Pennsylvania Senate

  • The Senate was in recess until August 30, 2023. This date had been moved up two weeks to deal with any budgetary concerns.
  • Since our last report, six bills were referred to the Senate Education Committee. Six bills have been voted out of committee. None of these bills should be a concern to PA homeschoolers.
  • On June 26, the committee considered the nomination of Dr. Khalid Mumin as the Secretary of Education. The former Reading and Lower Merion superintendent was confirmed as the PA Secretary of Education in a 46-3 vote.

Local School Districts

  • Continuing issue: A number of school districts have begun to reject the Unsworn Declaration. To best address this issue, it has been recommended that Title 42, Chapter 62 of the Uniform Unsworn Declaration Act be amended.  The definition portion of the act found at section 6202, should be amended to include, “sworn declaration to include, a notarized affidavit”.
  • Lebanon School District recently sent a letter to homeschool families saying that if the homeschooled child was subject to the testing requirement, “…those test results must be submitted. … I trust that you understand and will comply with the provisions of the law defined in this letter.” CHAP co-signed a letter with HSLDA to inform the school district that there is no statute that requires home school families to submit test results to any school official.

Other

  • Pennsylvania now has a new HSLDA attorney assigned to our state, Will Estrada. We wish Scott Woodruff God’s blessings on his new assignment.
  • In the academic school year 2023-2024, it is believed that Pennsylvania spending will exceed $20,000 per public school student. Pennsylvania is in the top eight states in spending per student.
  • The Faith and Freedom Index which is compiled by the NAPA Legal Institute determined that Pennsylvania is ranked 40th out of 50 states for its friendliness toward faith based non-profit organizations. The survey revealed that Pennsylvania only obtained a score of 30% on religious freedom and a score of 55% as to regulatory freedom.

Issues of Interest

  • There is a growing concern among parents of public school children that the public schools of Pennsylvania are advocating “secrecy policy”, which would prevent parents from knowing about gender issues of their children.
  • There is an additional concern that CRT (Culturally Responsive Teaching) is being intertwined into programs without using the CRT terminology.
  • On Election Day, November 7, 2023, Pennsylvanians will elect officials to serve in county offices, local offices and local school boards.

Brad serves as the Vice President of the CHAP Board; he is also chairman of our Legislation Committee. He is a practicing attorney for 33 years and is an adjunct faculty member at Cairn University. Brad reads all proposed legislation that comes before the education committees in Harrisburg to determine the impact on homeschooling families in Pennsylvania. Brad strives to encourage and protect Christian homeschooling families in our Commonwealth.