When West Virginia’s school choice legislation was passed in 2021, CHEWV worked hard to keep the Hope scholarship exemptions separated from the 1986 exemption for privately funded homeschooling – because we know that government funding means more regulation and less freedom.

Currently, Hope students, learning pod students, microschool students, public school students, private school students, and homeschoolers are all separated in the law – in entirely different exemptions. Each option has its own requirements specified in the law. And that’s how it needs to stay.

It’s true that all students should have access to diploma equity, the PROMISE scholarship, and other benefits enjoyed by privately-funded homeschoolers. However, that equality needn’t come at the expense of private homeschooling. Assuring these benefits for Hope students can and should be accomplished by adding wording to the proper sections of law addressing those specific benefits – not by grouping everyone who does school at home under the same legal definition and requirements.

It’s imperative to keep privately-funded options completely LEGALLY separate from government-funded options. Privately-funded homeschooling is the ultimate safety net for every child no matter how they are currently educated because it brings the child fully back under the loving safety of the parent.

We know that government funding is a desirable perk for many families, and perhaps even necessary for some families for private school tuition. BUT we still need to maintain the separate legal category for the “safety net” – so that it will always be there when any family needs it – without government pre-approval, without stipulations on what curriculum can be used, without unnecessary government intrusion.

Both privately-funded homeschooling and Hope Individualized Instruction Programs can be used by parents to effectively educate their child. We can form co-ops and learn together, we can take field trips together, we can be friends and play together. But we cannot confuse the two legal exemptions. We can’t merge them together in the law and still maintain the integrity of that legal safety net - for any family could one day need it.

The private homeschooling law is the ultimate safety net for every single child – because it brings the child back under the safety of the parent. If push came to shove in any situation – whatever it would take for any individual parent to feel shoved – they can take control of their own child’s safety via exemption c2 – whether the safety concern is physical, emotional, philosophical, or moral. That choice was universally-available prior to 1897. It was restored in part in 1986. And now it’s our turn to preserve the freedom that was so hard won on our behalf - for the children’s sake.