Bill requires homeschooling families, private schools give Illinois students' personal info

(OSV News) -- An Illinois bill that compels homeschooling families and private schools to provide the state with the personal information of every student enrolled in some form of private education passed in an 8-4 committee vote March 19 after drawing significant backlash from parents and religious and other private schools.

Catholic parents were among the thousands who submitted opposition witness slips for the public record, and the Catholic Conference of Illinois spoke out on behalf of the state's Catholic and private schools.

Illinois H.B. 2827, dubbed the Homeschool Act, requires homeschool "administrators" -- mainly parents and sometimes guardians -- to submit a so-called homeschool declaration form that must include a student's name, address, birth date and grade level.

The administrator also has to include similar personal information, plus proof of having completed high school or its state-recognized equivalent.

Forms would have to be submitted yearly to either the public school or the public school district that the child's address belongs to, and they would then be kept at a regional office of education. Private schools would also have to submit to the state personal information on each student to the state.

Failure to submit the declaration form is the equivalent of truancy and subjects the homeschoolers to public school truancy rules. Upon request, homeschoolers are also required to submit a portfolio of the student's work to demonstrate their studies meet state educational requirements. An administrator who does not submit the paperwork faces a Class C misdemeanor charge that carries a penalty of up to 30 days in prison and/or a $500 fine.

OSV News sent phone and email messages to the bill's main sponsor, Rep. Terra Costa Howard, a Democrat from Glen Ellyn, a suburb west of Chicago, but did not receive an immediate response.

In a video of the hearing uploaded by the Illinois Family Institute, a pro-family advocacy group that upholds Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions, Costa Howard said the bill was necessary to ensure the safety of abused children who are homeschooled. But halfway through the hearing, she said there was "nothing in the bill" that either prevents abuse or neglect for children either at home or in private schools.

The Home School Legal Defense Association, or HSLDA, warned against a "Make Homeschool Safe Act" template created by the Coalition for Responsible Home Education; a significant portion of the Illinois bill is based on the template.

The coalition is a group made up of formerly homeschooled advocates who have said on their website that while their own homeschooling experiences were mostly fine, they want regulations in place for abused children who are taken out of public school and homeschooled.

HSLDA called the template "an all-out attack on homeschool liberty from beginning to end."

According to lawmakers at the state House Education Public Policy Committee's two-hour hearing, more than 47,000 opponent witness slips were submitted. Supporters' witness slips numbered around 1,000.

Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, the public policy arm of the state's Catholic bishops, told OSV News that state regulators ensure safety compliance at Catholic schools and state auditors check on their curricula, looking more at basic and aggregate data on the schools rather than fine details.

"But in doing that, at no point in time, are we required to send over the names and the addresses of our individual students and the parents. That's personally identifiable information that we don't think we should be mandated to provide to the state. ... So we just think (H.B.) 2827 is a step too far," said Gilligan.

Kathy Wentz, treasurer of the Illinois Homeschool Association, was among what she estimated were 7,000 opponents who came to the Capitol. She said homeschooling families "are desperately wanting this to die in the House and to die quickly because this is a horrible, horrible bill." She said opponents are anticipating a hearing on the Senate's version.

"This is going to be a very expensive law, if it's passed into law. We have so many needs in our public school classrooms," she told OSV News. "We have so many needs for better DCFS (Department of Children and Family Services) funding and staffing. We have so much need within every community in Illinois for the truant officers, which also help with housing and food assistance, to be out in the community. And this is taking away from all of that. It's basically a solution in search of a problem."

Denise Garcia, a Catholic homeschooling parent from Lockport, southwest of Chicago, went to Springfield. She teaches her middle through high school age children. She told OSV News parents do not want government interference in the raising of their children.

"The Catholic Church teaches that the family is sovereign. (Education is) the responsibility of the parents. That is the end of marriage, right? The procreation and education of children," said Garcia, citing the 1930 papal encyclical on Christian marriage, "Casti Connubii" ("Of Chaste Wedlock").

Both Wentz and Garcia referred to a 1950 Illinois Supreme Court ruling in People v. Levisen that raised homeschooling to the standard of public and private schooling.

"Levisen already established that process. We have certain bare minimums that we have to do. We have to teach language arts and math and social sciences and health. We have to follow that, right?" Garcia said. "HSLDA gives us that guidance. And, we have to keep records ... In the event that we should have to produce them, we have them available. And if there is a report of negligence, that's already currently in the statutes. So this bill is not necessary because we already have those things in place."

HSLDA, a Christian group, gives legal advice to homeschooling parents to help them remain in compliance with national and international education standards and says it fights for "the best homeschool laws nationwide."

A Catholic homeschooling mom, Courtney Weicher, 39, from Glen Ellyn, also went to Springfield. She said a story told by a Democratic colleague of Costa Howard at the hearing -- involving the abuse, neglect and death of a 9-year-old whose family's case was closed by DCFS -- was "concerning" and "horrible."

"We would absolutely want to do everything we could to (lend) support (to) that sort of situation and correct that sort of error. But this idea that to have these families fill out a form is somehow going to eradicate or eliminate abuse in these instances, I think that's an oversimplification of the problem," Weicher said. "And I don't like to see homeschoolers being painted in this light as abusive or not really invested parents."

The National Home Education Research Institute, which in 2022 compared a number of studies on abuse in homeschooled children versus those in public and private school, concluded that "at this point there is little evidence that public and private school children are abused, neglected, or otherwise maltreated at any higher or lower rate than the homeschooled." It said more research needs to be done.