Currently, most of CHEWV’s concerns for the 2025 WV Legislative Session center on responses to recent abuse situations. A frequent response to heart-breaking situations like Raylee Browning’s and Kynnedi Miller’s is, “We need to do something about this!” Understandably so. Legislators feel it. School personnel feel it. The general population feels it. We feel it.
However, CHEWV believes that the “something that needs done” should never be a knee jerk reaction. Instead, any actionable strategy must be based on solid investigation into what, in fact, went wrong. Apart from such an objective approach, we will almost inevitably create a problematic solution that harms other children, while failing to reduce the chance for these types of situations to tragically repeat themselves.
The history of the modern home education movement tells us that greater homeschool regulation across the board is an unhelpful and handicapping reaction. Nevertheless, crackdowns on all homeschoolers are almost always the solution proffered by virtually every news article, legislator, and state official.
So what can homeschoolers do to not only prepare for the coming session, but also to minimize the ongoing call for increased regulation?
- Obey the homeschool law! Build peer pressure in your neck of the woods for everyone to do the same. Annual assessments should be done without question. Submissions in required years should be on time.
- Understand the homeschool law.
- If reports to CPS result in evidence of abuse, the county superintendent already has the authority to take that evidence to the circuit court for an order to preclude homeschooling.
- Additionally, if school personnel suspect abuse of a child who is chronically absent, they are not only allowed but required to report that to CPS. That means that no child is able to just submit a NOI and side step abuse suspicion.
- Likewise, if homeschool assessment results are not turned in a timely fashion, the county already has the ability to follow up to ensure that the law’s requirements are being met.
- However, the homeschooling law addresses academic issues and that should not change. Be aware that abuse situations that are laid at homeschoolers’ feet almost always involve students who were previously in public school! News stories always confirm that suspicions were reported by someone. These are not invisible children, despite the fact that what happened AFTER the suspicion was reported was inadequate to the situations! What happens AFTER a report is made must be investigated.
- Understand the law’s foundation. Anything short of due process is a flagrant disregard for American freedom and the principles that hold us steady. However, that does NOT mean that abuse goes unpunished nor undiscovered. For both Kynnedi Miller and Raylee Browning, problems were suspected and authorities were contacted. Why were these issues addressed to no avail? That question not only needs answered, but more than surface responses need considered.
- Stay abreast of this issue by reading CHEWV articles on the subject. We take our responsibilities very seriously. There are real issues to debate, and we try our best to research, discuss, talk to legislators, pray, and defend from a place of integrity. We also do our best to share what we find with you.
- Pray. Unless the Lord defends the city, the watchman watch in vain (Ps. 127:1).
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