By DAVID BOYLE

The lawsuit filed by the NEA-AK against homeschool parents, to be heard by the Alaska Supreme Court on June 27, has awakened the lion.  

The lawsuit was filed because a few parents were allegedly using their school allotments to purchase religious materials/courses. 

And any materials/courses the parents purchased with their allotment had to be approved by the correspondence schools.  These schools have that final approval responsibility. 

The NEA said that some parents had violated the constitution and judge Adolf Zeman agreed. 

Because of that, a robust individualized education program for more than 22,000 students was shut down. Why did everyone have to pay a heavy price?  Would it not have been better and fairer to chastise the few than destroy the entire program?

It seems the NEA-AK and the education industry seized this opportunity to rein in the homeschool program which has grown from 14,359 students in 2019 to more than 22,000 students currently. They had to stop the hemorrhaging of students from their brick-and-mortar schools.

They knew more and more parents were choosing to leave because the brick-and-mortar schools are pushing values that do not align with parents’ principles. The schools are no longer teaching the ABCs, something these parents believed is critical to their children’s future. The neighborhood public schools are even failing to teach children how to read.

Would the courts shut down the entire fishing season on the Russian River because a couple of fishermen exceeded their daily red salmon limits? I would surely hope not. Would the commercial fishing guides file a lawsuit to shut down a river because fewer than a dozen people violated the regulations? Probably not.

Instead, the State would fine the violators, take their fish and tackle, and possibly restrict their fishing privileges in the future.

Maybe the NEA-AK and the education industry had very different motives than just correcting an immediate problem of some schools not following the current law.  

Just maybe their goal was to put further restrictions on the homeschool community by putting major obstacles in parents’ way so they would become frustrated and just send their children to the brick-and-mortar schools. Most parents have said they will not return to those failing schools even if they lose the money. The real losers would be the lower income parents who want to home school but cannot afford to do so without state allotment funds.   

The education industry knows that there will be fewer students in the near future. That’s because of declining birth rates and parents pulling their children out of the traditional public schools. The NEA-AK fears losing members and losing dues. When it loses members and dues, it loses power and control.

But it didn’t know that home school parents were totally engaged in their children’s education. And these parents are angry.  These parents are mad. They know what the best education fit for their children is and they are going to protect that at all costs.

The legislators found out how angry homeschool parents were. When Senator Loki Tobin’s Senate Bill 266 correspondence school bill was heard, more than 95% of the testimony was against the bill. 

That’s because S.B. 266 placed even more restrictions on the correspondence program than the brick-and-mortar schools had.  Homeschool students had to do mandated state testing which the brick-and-mortar students could opt out of. 

Homeschool students were limited in how much of their dollar allotment could be used for PE, Music, and the arts. On the other hand, brick-and-mortar students could use state funding to attend plays and musical events. And homeschool parents were only allowed to roll over 10% of their remaining allotments to the next school year.  Meanwhile, the brick-and-mortar schools could keep all their state funding in their unreserved fund balance account for the next year.

There was no equity for home school parents and their children.  

The overwhelming testimony by home school parents virtually killed that bill.

In contrast, when House Bill 400, the correspondence school bill, was heard in the House, more than 95% of the testimony favored the bill because it had few restrictions to the current program. It put the responsibility on the State Board of Education to implement the bill through regulations.

The NEA-AK filed its lawsuit based on the fact that some parents were violating the Alaska Constitution by using their allotments to purchase courses/materials from private and/or religious institutions. It believed these parents were violating Article VII, Section 1 which states, “The legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State, and may provide for other public educational institutions. Schools and institutions so established shall be free from sectarian control. No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

Let’s look at some other violations of the Alaska Constitution. Alaska funds the Alaska Performance Scholarship program, which helps students pay for their college expenses. These state funds can be used to pay for expenses at private educational institutions as well as public institutions.

Here is a list showing private postsecondary institutions and career-technical institutions that benefit from the publicly funded scholarship program:

Will the NEA-AK file a lawsuit against the State of Alaska for funding these private educational institutions? Probably not because it stands to lose little.

Here’s another violation of the Alaska Constitution. The most recent session of the House went over the limit of days that it can convene. The Legislature must adjourn within 120 days of its convening. Here is Article II, Section 8 that prescribes this:

“The legislature shall adjourn from regular session no later than one hundred twenty consecutive calendar days from the date it convenes except that a regular session may be extended once for up to ten consecutive calendar days.”

Will the NEA-AK file a lawsuit against the Alaska Legislature for violating the Alaska Constitution?  

One should not be able to selectively choose whether the Alaska Constitution is being violated. But that is just what the NEA-AK and the education industry have done. It fits their purpose.

The NEA-AK has created a crisis for the more than 22,000 homeschool students.  In doing so, it has activated an overwhelming group of parents who will protect their kids no matter what the cost.  

This homeschool parent sums up the feelings of most, “I really liked how he said that “24K students aren’t just going to line up to register at their neighborhood school.” 

He couldn’t’ be more right about that. When we go independent, they will lose the funding that they get from the federal government by being able to claim us as public school students.  Anyone who thinks we’re just going to enroll en-masse up the road and hand our kids over is delusional.”

David Boyle is an education writer for Must Read Alaska.