To the Editor:
I am writing to you to inform you of a private backdoor meeting that is taking place this Monday in Hartford. The state is taking a tragedy, which exemplified evil in humanity of a 31-year-old man that was held captive and escaped by setting a fire, to stigmatize the entire homeschooling community as abusers.
Unfortunately, the measures the state is taking to “prevent” abuse are a complete overreach with an emergency order to impose all homeschoolers register with their town’s public schools and mandate that they follow school curriculum and state testing. It is in the state constitution that parents are responsible for educating their children. The state is using covid emergency policies to bypass the elected official’s duty to vote on bills.
With one swipe of the pen, Gov. Ned Lamont can mandate every homeschooler to follow the public school system. Isn’t that a dictatorship? Where is the public hearing? Where is the conversation between democrats and republicans? Where is the vote our elected officials were entrusted to make?
This secret meeting was discovered with less than a week to find childcare, take off of work, and speak with our elected officials. Why is this an emergency? There were millions of students nationwide who went missing during covid and that was NOT considered an emergency. Chronic absenteeism is an epidemic in the state for currently enrolled public-school students but that is NOT an emergency nor is DCF task force knocking on those families’ doors to check if children aren’t being abused. How many teachers and staff are accused and convicted of abuse, let alone all the children who do not report abuse from a teacher? Where is the prevention in those cases where they are background checked and monitored by administrators? Where is more staff for DCF to monitor those situations?
This seems like a power grab to dictate what a small community of families should be forced to do vs prevent child abuse from happening.
Alicia Teitelbaum
Fairfield County Homeschool Coalition