SB727, and What it Means to You
In the afternoon hours of May 7, 2024, Governor Parsons signed into law a massive education reform bill that includes some changes to Missouri homeschool law. Prior to passage of the bill, there was a lot of attention and concern about how this bill will actually affect current homeschoolers in our State. So we at MHA are here to give you the facts, broken down so that you can understand them.
If you haven’t yet taken the time to read the bill—and let’s face it, not everyone geeks out on reading legislation like we do—go ahead and click on the link to open it in a new tab. You can have the actual legislation handy while we go through the sections that apply to homeschools.
Ready? Grab a cup of coffee. Here we go!
The first (and very important) part of SB727 that applies to changes related to homeschoolers can be found in section 166.700. For those of you who are following along, that’s all the way down on page 84. In 166.700 (8), you will see that a home school is removed as a “qualified school” under the MO Scholars program. This program is a means for the government to distribute private, voluntary money given through a tax credit program to fund education outside of the public school system. Up until the passage of SB727, there were a very small number of homeschool students who were receiving this funding from the State to pay for homeschool expenses. This, however, was incredibly problematic because there were many additional requirements placed only on homeschool families that were outside of the requirements of our Missouri homeschool law. We have been working since the inception of the MO Scholars program to get home schools removed as a qualified school, and this bill has now accomplished this goal.
You will hear more from us in the near future about the dangers of funding for home school or private education, but that is the subject of a future blog post.
Secondly, on page 85, you will find a brand new section of the law (indicated by bold type) called 167.012. This is our brand-new homeschool statute. This ia a huge change that will have lasting protection for homeschool freedom in our State. When our homeschool law was originally written in 1986, it was placed within our compulsory education statute, leaving our freedoms vulnerable and our law subject to change any time the legislature opened up the compulsory education statute to address other issues. By moving us to our own statute, we have achieved “statutory separation”, sometimes called a “statutory silo”, which will make it more difficult for future legislatures to make changes to our homeschool law without admitting that they are coming directly for our freedoms! The wording of this section should seem very familiar to you as a Missouri homeschooler, as the language is nearly identical to our previous statute under 167.031. While the language may at first seem cut-and-paste, there are a few changes we will enumerate for you now.
First, there is the addition of some brand new language. In subsection 1.(4), included in the definition of home school, you will read that a homeschool “does not enroll children who participate in the program established in 135.712-135.719 and 166.700-166.720”. This is the section of the law where the MO Scholars program was established, so this language is just reiterating that a homeschool does NOT participate in the MO Scholars program.
Secondly, subsection 1.(5) says that a homeschool “is not an FPE school”. We will follow up with an additional blog post at a later date explaining what an FPE school actually is, but the short answer is, an FPE school is a program of home-based education that is funded by the State, and that adheres to specific rules and regulations for compliance. (These rules have not yet been written and published, so we still don’t know the extent of these rules.) An FPE school is NOT a homeschool. And a homeschool is NOT an FPE school. More information coming soon about the very important distinctions, but if you continue as you are now—an independent, privately-funded homeschool—then you will continue to be legally considered a homeschool.
Your record keeping and hours tracking requirements will remain exactly the same with one small exception. In section 2(2) (that’s on page 86), there is a tiny change. The language now reads “…reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, or academic courses that are related to such subject areas and consonant with the child’s age and ability.” An astute reader may note that the word “and” has been deleted between social studies and science, which may lead some parents to interpret that you are no longer required to teach all five subjects. We will leave that decision to each member and their attorney to decide, but we urge you to remember that our goal as home educators is to always provide our children with an excellent and well-rounded education.
As a side note, you will see that subsection 3 still refers to section 167.031, the as-of-now-current home to our homeschool statute, but that is because 167.031 is actually related to compulsory school attendance and applies to ALL Missouri children, ages 7 to 17, regardless of educational choice.
Moving on to the bottom of page 88, you will see the substatial changes made to 167.031. As always, items that are in bold face are new language and items that are greyed out are items that are being deleted from the statute. In section 167.031, 1(1) the language has been re-written and cleaned up a bit for clarity. It now reads, “Every parent…is responsible for enrolling the child in a program of acadmeic instruction in public, private, parochial, parish school, home school, FPE school, or full-time equivalent attendance in a combination of such schools between the ages of seven and the compulsory attendance age for the district.” Note that home school is listed separately with the other recognized legal choices for school in the state of Missouri. This is important that we are given our own distinction and recognition here.
Subsection 2(2) on pages 90-91 is all greyed out because it is deleting the Missouri homeschool definition from this section of the law, as it has been moved to its own statute in 167.012, as previously discussed.
Finally, the last big change is seen on pages 166-167. This is the deletion of the entire section 167.071, which provided the ability for certain districts to hire and deputize an attendance officer. All homeschool advocacy organizations were united in favor of this change, as it placed a significant amount of power in the hands of one single school district employee, and gave them authority over homeschooled students when in reality, they should have none.
We at MHA appreciate the trust and faith that you have placed in us as we have worked through the legislative session this year. We will be providing more updates here on our blog, as well as on our social media channels, and in our email updates. if you haven’t already subscribed to our email list, we encourage you to do so today. And if you support the work that we at MHA are doing to encourage parents to stand up for their own children’s education, to equip parents with the resources and skills they need to succeed in educating their children at home, to advocate for homeschool freedom in Missouri, and to partner with leaders in the homeschool community to provide guidance and support, please consider joining MHA today! Your generous support will help to further the work of MHA and equip us to provide even more exciting opportunities and benefits to our members in the very near future.
