Homeschool Oversight Rejected in California

In April, California homeschoolers swarmed upon their state Capitol in Sacramento to successfully reject greater oversight of home educators in the Golden State.

Authored by Jose Medina from the Greater Los Angeles community of Riverside, the bill officially known as AB2756 began as an attempt at requiring local fire marshals to inspect homeschools. However, after Medina’s office was bombarded by phone calls in opposition, his focus shifted to simply trying to measure the number of homeschool students in the state. That, too, was met with heavy disapproval among the homeschool community.

“It’s still basically forming a database of what parents are doing, how they’re doing it, how many people they’re doing it for,” Aaron Haiman, a second generation homeschooler told KQED in San Francisco. “This is exactly the kind of database that can be mined for more restrictive regulations.”

While only two people spoke in favor of the bill, nearly 1,000 people waited in a line that snaked around two floors of the Capitol to present nearly three hours of testimony in the California State Assembly in opposition to the law, including Travis Allen, who is running for governor in 2018.

“AB 2756 is absolutely wrong. It must fail. It must fail today,” Allen said as recorded by GV Wire. “California’s parents and children have the right to the very best education this state can possibly provide.”

While Medina argued that he was merely trying to “give a better picture of the educational landscape in California” and there was no “sinister purpose,” homeschoolers nonetheless rejoiced and declared it a huge victory when the bill was defeated without even coming to a vote.

“We want to show you we’re paying attention,” said Anne Teagarde, a homeschool mom from Santa Clara. “This is just showing if you want to do more, look at how we’re reacting to something small.”