I think Shay doesn’t like HSLDA:<\/p>\n
VA: PW County Victory!<\/p>\n
Thanks to local grassroots action, homeschoolers in Prince William County, Virginia are no longer burdened by the onerous “approval before removal” requirement. At tonight’s school board meeting, board members voted 6-2 in favor of removing the offensive language from its current homeschool regulation. This leaves us with a regulation that is fully in line with state law. The coalition is gratified that after 1\u00bd years of bridge building, we won the majority of the board to enthusiastic support.<\/p>\n
One board member, who stated, “We need to get these obstacles out of the way and support our homeschool parents,” even hugged a member of the coalition after the formal session ended. Most other board members’ comments expressed support for the homeschooling community and frustration that the issue has dragged out this long.<\/p>\n
Local homeschoolers and members of the PWCS board were taken by surprise by HSLDA’s sudden and unsolicited involvement in this local issue. However, the national organization’s actions did help to limit the changes to the current regulation solely to removal of the offensive clause, without the addition of any potentially problematic wording.<\/p>\n
HSLDA attorney Scott Woodruff actively participated in discussing the legal issues with the coalition and the school division personnel. The organization made an effort to keep communication lines open until this was resolved.<\/p>\n
Before the board meeting commenced, grassroots coalition member Amy Wilson submitted proposed language to the board member who has been the group’s primary contact. This language was crafted by the coalition, with agreement from Mr. Woodruff, as a result of numerous communiqu\u00e9s between the two parties.<\/p>\n
During its Citizen Time slot, the coalition’s spokesperson, Shay Seaborne, expressed appreciation for the board’s willingness to revisit this issue, and for members’ dedication to helping the community. As a token of thanks, Ms. Seaborne presented the board and superintendent with a basket of cookies baked by herself and her children. This brought broad smiles of thanks.<\/p>\n
Mr. Woodruff described HSLDA’s aims, purposes, goals, and statistics, stated that he had worked with Amy Wilson, and then noted that he was available if the school board needed any legal advice in this matter.<\/p>\n
The HSLDA spokesperson claimed that the organization represents more than 200 families in the county. Mr. Woodruff multiplied that by about 2-3 children per family, arriving at 400-600 children represented by the organization. Local homeschoolers were extremely surprised by these numbers, considering that the total number of homeschooled children in the county is approximately 1,100 according to school division figures. Due to their knowledge of the Prince William County homeschool community, coalition members speculate that a not insignificant portion of HSLDA members in the county are underground on the advice of that organization, and therefore, are not represented among the school division’s count.<\/p>\n
Local homeschoolers and Mr. Woodruff are pleased with the wording of the current regulation as amended at this meeting. However, the board plans to revisit the homeschool regulation over the summer, due to concerns expressed by the board attorney.<\/p>\n
Members of the grassroots coalition plan to continue their active involvement in this issue, and look forward to building on the foundation of mutual respect and cooperation that we have established with the school division.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think Shay doesn’t like HSLDA: VA: PW County Victory! Thanks to local grassroots action, homeschoolers in Prince William County, Virginia are no longer burdened by the onerous “approval before removal” requirement. At tonight’s school board meeting, board members voted 6-2 in favor of removing the offensive language from its current homeschool regulation. This leaves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}