In the labyrinth of
legislative maneuvering, when a committee chairman who represents the majority
says a bill is going to be passed, it’s usually unwise to bet against that
result.
But when a bill in the Hawaii legislature that
would have required parents to undergo a “child abuse and neglect
history inquiry” as well as a “background check” to be allowed to teach
their own children was put before the committee, hundreds of homeschoolers and
their parents showed up to protest.
The bill had
majority support and was expected to become law didn’t even get a
vote.
But after the
hearing, the sponsor asked that it be withdrawn, and ultimately the Hawaii
committees on Education and Human Services “deferred” on the plan.
Peter Kamakawisoole
of the Home
School Legal Defense Association,who returned to his “ancestral
home” for the hearing, acknowledged “we faced an uphill battle.”
“There is not a
single Republican in the Hawaii State Senate. Of the 10 committee members,
seven had already signed on as sponsors of S.B. 2323 – including both of the
committee chairs and vice-chairs,” he wrote in a report for HSLDA.
“And to make matters
even worse, the chair opened the meeting by telling us that the bill would be
passed that day with amendments that would leave both the approval and
background checks intact.”
But the parents
stood their ground.
They offered “more
than 700 pages of testimony, and filled first the hearing room, then one
overflow room, and a second, and a third.”
“By day’s end, there
were at least four more televisions in the outside hall. All of them were being
watched at all times. At one point the fire marshal had to halt the proceedings
because of the volume of people outside,” Kamakawisoole wrote.
The hearing was held
jointly by the Hawaii Senate’s Education and Human Services committees.
“If passed, it would
mark a sea change in homeschool history: every single homeschooling family in
Hawaii would have to submit to mandatory criminal background checks before they
could gain ‘approval’ to educate their own keiki (children) at home,”
Kamakawisoole said.
The hearing started
poorly for the homeschoolers when Sen. Michelle Kidani, the chairwoman,
confirmed the votes already were there to pass the bill with the amendments to
“require approval and background checks.”
“We were hoping to
make a statement. What we actually got was a miracle,” Kamakawisoole said.
It came when Sen.
Gil Kahele “asked the chair to withdraw the bill, in favor of returning to the
issues … next session.”
“While the immediate
danger appears to have passed, there’s still work to be done in advance of the
2019 and 2020 sessions. And there will be time in the future to discuss where
we go from here,” he said.
“Every marathon has
a critical moment. This was yours,” he told the parents. “And you crushed it.”