Currently, Maryland homeschool families have no official say on the development of policies that directly impact their rights and responsibilities relating to educating their children at home. By creating an official Homeschool Advisory Council, the Maryland State Department of Education would be required to work with homeschool parents on assessing, creating, and promoting fair and equitable policies and regulations.

Read our Frequently Asked Questions about HB832 to understand how the proposed Homeschool Advisory Council would benefit Maryland families.

Watch the recorded zoom forum where MDHSA and HSLDA discuss the pros and cons of HB832.

Should this bill be signed into law, the Homeschool Advisory Council would be comprised of 16 individuals. The bill mandates that the council MUST be representative of the diverse voices of homeschooling that exist in Maryland, including selection criteria based on:

• Race
• Religion
• Homeschool philosophy
• Geography

The Homeschool Advisory Council would have NO authority to collect data on individual families, nor would the council have the ability to make policies or regulations that would negatively impact homeschoolers. The council could, however, host town hall forums where families could voluntarily share their thoughts and concerns on issues the council may take up on behalf of Maryland families. Issues the council could make recommendations on may include removing the 15-day wait period between submitting a Notice of Intent and officially beginning to homeschool.

The Right to Play Act of 2022 would allow homeschool children to participate in their locally zoned public school’s afterschool sports programs, as well as music, drama, student organizations, and other school sponsored programs.

Homeschool students would be required to comply with the school’s attendance and GPA participation requirements before being allowed to join any club or sports team.

Currently, homeschoolers are NOT required to submit grades as part of their homeschool portfolio review. It is highly doubtful that public schools would simply accept parent-issued grades, especially from families who unschool or use nontraditional curriculum. That opens up the question, then, of how schools will determine acceptable grades for homeschoolers.

Additionally, homeschoolers who wish to participate in extracurricular activities would be required to document “attendance”. That opens up the question of (1) how much homeschool time each day would be equivalent to a public school day and (2) do homeschoolers need to provide “regular, thorough instruction” on a strictly Monday – Friday schedule.

The Education Savings Account Program grants money to public, private, and homeschool families who wish to enroll their children in a “qualifying school”. Homeschooling is specifically EXCLUDED from being a “qualifying school”, but bill’s language appears to suggest there would be room for the use of “private tutoring” and distance learning to be used through a “qualifying school” choice.

A major concern with this bill is that it has the potential to blur the lines between what homeschooling is and the type of instruction that “qualifying schools” would provide. This is a significant concern, as families who receive ESAP funds would be subject to state testing requirements, as well as attendance requirements. As HB 1156 would require MSDE to create new regulations to implement this program, it is possible that new regulatory requirements would extend to all homeschoolers.

The Right to Learn Act of 2022 is essentially a voucher program specifically designed for students who would otherwise be attending a “failing” public school. The bill would create something called “BOOST” or Right to Learn Scholarships. These scholarships would be given to individual families to use for curriculum and other educational needs for their children.

The bill sponsors specifically include homeschooling as a school choice option that parents can elect to use with their scholarship funds.

The bill also specifically states that the Maryland State Department of Education must create regulations to monitor how the funds are distributed to families who choose to homeschool or utilize other school choice options. Generally, when the state grants educational funding, strict monitoring takes place and approval processes are initiated to verify and validate the money is spent appropriately.

In the case of homeschooling, MSDE would then have a say over what is appropriate curriculum for homeschoolers to use. There is also the added concern of how the state would verify if a family is doing a better job of educating their children than the failing school – or if the family could also be considered “failing”. The potential exists that any new oversight for BOOST homeschoolers would wind up extending to all homeschool families.