New Homeschool Group hopes to uphold the Constitution

e-mail

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Dear Homeschool Leaders,

I would like to introduce myself. I am Attorney Deborah G. Stevenson and I am Executive Director of a newly formed organization, National Home Education Legal Defense. I would like to tell you about this organization and our goals in the hope that you will be interested in working with us.

National Home Education Legal Defense, or NHELD, grew out of a Statewide organization that began in Connecticut as Connecticut's Citizens To Uphold the Right to Educate, or CT's C.U.R.E. CT's C.U.R.E. was founded in 1989 and has been instrumental in maintaining the rights of parents to Homeschool without government interference since that time. On more than one occasion, we helped unite other statewide homeschool groups in coordinated efforts and successfully defeated proposed state legislation designed to "regulate" homeschooling. In 2002, CT's C.U.R.E. became Home Education Legal Defense of Connecticut offering information, consultation, mediation and legal assistance to those who joined. Now, Home Education Legal Defense of Connecticut has become National Home Education Legal Defense offering these same services to parents nationwide.

With your assistance, NHELD will do this by creating a network of Attorneys in each state licensed to practice law in their home state, who Are thoroughly familiar with their state's laws that are applicable to homeschooling, and who have been recommended to us as trusted leaders by the homeschooling support groups in their state. NHELD believes that the best way to know the laws in a particular state and how those laws are most appropriately interpreted to support homeschooling parents in that state is to live in that state. NHELD also believes that the best way to protect the rights of homeschooling parents is by effective organization to protect our Constitution by preserving the Tenth Amendment guarantee that educational issues are left to the states and to the people, not to the federal government.

Among NHELD's goals are the following:

1.. Retain or regain the right of parents to educate their children unfettered by government regulation. 2.. Prevent or eliminate any federal regulation of home education due to its unconstitutionality. 3.. Provide a central clearinghouse for information concerning existing or proposed legislation affecting the right of parents to home educate. 4.. Provide accurate legal advice to parents about state law that affects home education. 5.. Provide legal services to individual families, when necessary, in order to preserve their right to home educate. 6.. Provide a central clearinghouse for information about parents who have encountered problems in their efforts to home educate and effective means for resolving those problems. 7.. Provide a central clearinghouse for parents nationwide to receive advice, consultation, and strategic means to uphold their right to home educate. 8.. Assist parents in obtaining knowledge about their right to home educate in their state to empower them to protect themselves, when necessary, from unlawful actions or unnecessary interference. 9.. Provide a nationwide organization to effectively defend the right of parents to home educate by whatever legal means necessary. 10.. Provide a nationwide organization that is sufficiently respected and effective to counter any proposed federal regulation of home education and to repeal any such existing regulation.

In order to accomplish these goals, NHELD needs your help. If you Support our goals, please help us, if you can, in the following ways:

1.. Consult with other homeschooling organizations in your state and suggest to us the names of any respected, trusted attorneys licensed to practice in your state who are sufficiently familiar with your state laws regarding home education and who would be willing to be listed as a participating NHELD attorney. 2.. Provide us with the names and contact information for all homeschooling organizations in your state so that we may offer them the opportunity to assist in our efforts. 3.. Circulate this information to anyone who is interested. 4.. Provide us with any suggestions that you believe may be helpful to us in accomplishing these goals.

NHELD is open to any family who seeks to preserve the right of parents to home educate. The cost to join us is $100.00 per year. Applications for membership are available on our website at www.nheld.com and checks may be sent to NHELD at P.O. Box 704, Southbury, CT 06488. Our email address is info@n... You also may contact Attorney Deborah Stevenson at (860) 354-3590 for further information.

We hope to hear from you soon. Together, nothing is impossible.

Attorney Deborah G. Stevenson

[Diva Betsy Ross]

I got this information from a homeschool loop e-mail.

I think it sounds pretty good. I am not sure what they would like to offer us that HSLDA doesn't already.

I think this may have to do with the Homeschool anti- disrimination bill that so many homeschoolers were against, which HSLDA supported.

Anyone have any comments or familiar with this group?

[Joe Brower]

Ping.

[Spiff]

Why compete with the wildly successful HSLDA? What's the point?

[concerned about politics]

Using a search engine, I found Deborah G. Stevenson has been doing this since at least 1998.
I found another page mentioning her name in a Utah bill to keep the state from trying to regulate the homeschoolers.

I don't understand why the states would care if people homeschool. It should be welcomed! The government schools aren't teaching anybody anything but dumbed down Marxism.
The states will need educated people to lead the country some day. Without homeschoolers or private schoolers, where are they going to find them? Mail order them from somewhere in another country?

[BibChr]

Your question is mine.

How would this differ from the already well-established, longtime, active and influential HSLDA?

Another product of the Department of Redundancy Department?

Dan

[Diva Betsy Ross]

I am not sure. I know many of the homeschoolers I correspond with are against the HSLDA support of the anti-discrimination bill. They are also angry that the HSLDA aligns themselves with Conservatives and Conservative issues.

These people seem to say that they do not want any government interference on any level, even if the government is actually trying to make the laws fair for homeschoolers. I think this group is trying to collect these types of homeschoolers.

Many of the homeschoolers I talk with are liberals and Democrats ,and just don't want anything to do with Conservatives or Republicians. I have gone around and around with them on this issue. My point is that the party of the NEA is never going to push for Less government accountability.

But , as I am sure you are aware, there is no reasoning with some Democrats or any liberal. They just hate the Republicans and that is all there is to it.

I think I am going to keep a close eye on this group.

[ibheath]

Bump for later read.