AFA of PA ACTION ALERT
March 22, 2013
Issue
Update on SB 32
Details
Thanks to the many who has contacted your State Senator and Senator Andrew Dinniman directly. Now for a couple updates.
1.) Turns out the current homeschool law already addresses the issue of child safety – and to an even greater extent. The following is a portion of what Maryalice Newborn, a member of the Pennsylvania Home Educators Association Advisory Board, sent to all members of the Senate Education Committee:
The Home Education Program Law (24 P.S. 13-1327.1 (b)(1)) currently prohibits home education of children when ANY adult living in the home has been convicted of an extensive legal list of crimes in the last five years, including:
homicide,
aggravated assault,
stalking,
kidnapping,
unlawful restraint,
rape,
statutory sexual assault,
involuntary deviate sexual intercourse,
sexual assault,
aggravated indecent assault,
indecent assault,
indecent exposure,
incest,
concealing the death of a child,
endangering the welfare of a child,
dealing in infant children,
prostitution and related offenses,
obscene and other sexual materials and performances,
corruption of minors,
AND sexual abuse of children.
Pennsylvania’s current law is far more restrictive than what is in SB32. Provisions are already in place to prevent children from being home educated in a dangerous situation. There is a complete lack of logic in legislating home visits to residences where a person has been subject of a child abuse report in the last eighteen months (SB32), since the law already prohibits a Home Education Program if a conviction has occurred within the last five years. This is equivalent to passing new legislation saying you cannot drive a car if your blood-alcohol content is greater than 3%, when the current value is 0.08%!
2.) From Senator Dinniman:
Dear Friends,
I have heard from many of you about my Senate 32. You are understandably very upset about the bill based on what you read in its co-sponsorship memo.
Unfortunately, the co-sponsorship memo was woefully misleading as it failed to include very important information about the bill.
Both the corrected co-sponsorship memo and Senate Bill 32 itself are attached, but in short Senate Bill 32 would only require school districts to notify their respective county agency of home- and cyber-schooled studentsif there was a documented history of child abuse within that household in the last 18 months. Such measure was one of the many recommended by Governor Corbett’s Task Force on Child Protection in its .. report.
I sincerely regret the mistake in the memo and truly appreciate receiving your very correct denunciation of the bill as it was wrongly described in the original co-sponsorship memo.
Respectfully,
Andy Dinniman
State Senator — 19th District
3.) Click here to read information about the 16 bills that were introduced in this package dealing with Child Protection Laws. These were introduced as a result of recommendations by the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection, which was created as a result of the Jerry Sandusky molestation case. As evidenced by SB 32, which apparently was written without actually taking into consideration the current homeschool law, how many of these other bills are either repetition of or rewrites existing law?
Action Steps
Pray for our entire education system and those who are in charge of making decisions. Those seeking to remake America know that if they take over the education system (which they have already been very successful in doing), they will succeed in creating an America we will not recognize.
Pray for marriage in America. Next Tuesday (March 26) the US Supreme Court will hear arguments for and against California’s Proposition 8 which passed in 2008 with a majority of voters wanting marriage to be defined as only between one man and one woman. Many prominent companies signed onto an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court find Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Later that week the Supreme Court will hear arguments for and against the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The US Department of Justice has filed an amicus brief supporting the overturn of DOMA..
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