Children's Committee S.B. No. 6 Update
Key Takeaways
- Complete Information About S.B. No. 6
During Tuesday’s public hearing and today’s Committee on Children meeting, much of our discussion centered on S.B. 6—a comprehensive bill drafted to protect children. While there are many parts of the bill that we all agree would benefit the welfare of children, Section 5 has rightfully received much criticism and scrutiny.
Section 5 would require school districts to notify the state Department of Education (SDE) whenever a student is withdrawn from public school by their parent or guardian. The SDE would then alert the Department of Children and Families (DCF), which would check if the family had any open abuse or neglect cases. I believe this overreaches by targeting families simply for choosing alternative educational options outside of the public school system. Specifically, this will unfairly target innocent and law abiding homeschool families that have done nothing wrong but their information about themselves and their children will be in the DCF pipeline for simply choosing to exercise their constitutional rights to educate their children at home.
That’s why, today, I introduced an amendment (LCO 1889) to pause and reconsider this approach. This proposal stemmed from my questioning of DCF Commissioner Hamilton on Tuesday, which would remove section 5 from the bill and instead create a study group involving the SDE, DCF, and the Attorney General’s office. This group would focus on the families already involved with the system and study the practicality of having DCF share information on children and families currently receiving protective services with substantiated claims with the local school districts. The local school districts would then in turn alert DCF if any of these highly vulnerable children were pulled out of school. What this would NOT do is unfairly target any innocent families, particularly our homeschoolers, as the bill section is currently drafted.
I strongly believe this would not only streamline the process but prevent all families from landing on certain lists or databanks for absolutely no reason at all. The amendment did receive bi-partisan support, but ultimately failed. I voted NO on the overall bill that did pass through the committee. I will keep you all up to date on the progress of this legislation.
March 3rd - Rep. Lanoue Questions CT DCF Interim Commissioner Susan Hamilton Concerning Section 5 of S.B. No. 6
March 5th - Rep. Lanoue Introduces Amendment B During Children's Committee Meeting to Improve S.B. No. 6
