Missouri does have homeschooling laws. While it does seem that Missouri’s laws are less restrictive than many other states, there are still laws to follow. In Jefferson City today, our legislators debate home education’s definitions and boundaries.
FLEX School?
A FLEX School is Family -=Led Educational Experience School. The bill sponsor and the committee leadership added language to protect a FLEX School.
Their desire is to support those home school families who want to remain as a “traditional” home school while at the same time giving those who want additional options the ability to choose for their students.
FHE Synapse The Bill
Kim Quon from Families for Home Education gave us the back story of this bill.
It will provide protections for traditional home school families and allow those who want to pursue the public school extracurriculars or the MOScholars scholarship program to do so under a different title. Just like private and parochial schools are only defined by religion but basically operate the same, activities will define the home school and new FLEX schools but operate basically the same.
With homeschoolers going in so many different directions, especially since Covid, we need to start putting some definitions around things. It’s hard to know what to do with virtual schools, online private schools, and hybrid schools, which are probably private schools but advertise for home schools, micro-schools, MOScholar families, part-time public schoolers, etc. None of these are traditional homeschoolers, and all have different rules to follow that we do NOT want to spill out across the board onto all homeschoolers.
Also, the bill will repeal/delete the letter of intent statute 167.042. This statute allows schools to ask a family to sign their letter of intent when they withdraw to home school. It is optional, but schools use it to intimidate and threaten families with refusal to unenroll or even truancy. This will eliminate this statute so that they can no longer ask for it. We always need to send our own letters when withdrawing, but the ones from FHE and HSLDA both have legal protections for the family pulling out of the school. This will be a huge plus to get rid of this statute. It has caused so much anxiety, confusion, and unnecessary conflict.
Bill History
When the Rules Committee refers it back to the House floor, it will be “Perfected” and voted up or down on the Third reading. Then it will go to a “Conference Committee” for the House and Senate to take a final vote. This must happen before May 12th, the last day of the 2023 Session. You can read the perfected bill here.
If you have an opinion on this bill, please contact Senator Bean at 573-751-4843. You can email him by going to his senate page here.
