The bills are intended to provide certainty for the more than 20,000 students enrolled in homeschool and correspondence programs.
Alaska House and Senate committees on Friday introduced bills intended to allow homeschool and correspondence programs to continue operating constitutionally.enacted in 2014 that allowed public funds to be spent at private and religious schools in Alaska. Those statutes explicitly prevented the state Board of Education from enacting regulations restricting how homeschool allotments are used.
The Senate bill mentions that some private tutoring could be allowed. But it does prohibit public funds being used to pay for one or two classes at a private or religious school, which had been seen as a gray area following the court’s decision. Soldotna Republican Rep. Justin Ruffridge, co-chair of the House Education Committee, said he was concerned about children in remote areas needing to travel for testing. But he acknowledged that could potentially be done online.The House and Senate bills would both require parents to return unused homeschool funds at the end of the school year. Parents are currently allowed to keep those funds, and with little oversight, critics have said it could be ripe for abuse.
Tobin said she was “very optimistic” that a majority of lawmakers want to provide certainty for homeschool students before the start of the next school year. Ruffridge said he was optimistic that the House bill could be part of a broader education package.that Zeman’s decision was “broad” and that it would be “a shot in the dark” for the Dunleavy administration to propose a statutory fix.
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