In July I sounded the alarm about The Make Homeschool Safe Act. The Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE), a Massachusetts-based organization that perpetuates homeschooling as abusive, is pushing for model legislation across the country to further regulate all home education. Pushing for a constitutional change, their goal is to further regulate home-school families.
I interviewed guests Diane Connors of Connecticut Homeschool Network and attorney Deborah Stevenson, founder of National Home Education Legal Defense, on the Free YOUR Children radio show, where we discussed the topic. You can find a link to all previously aired shows at freeyourchildren.com.
Who are the founders of CRHE? According to their website’s mission and vision:
“In December 2013, Kathryn Brightbill, Rachel Coleman, Heather Doney, Kieryn Darkwater and Ryan Stollar launched the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, a nonprofit organization created to advocate for homeschooled children.”
Interestingly, the only remaining founder’s name currently listed under the “Our Team” section is Kieryn Darkwater.
Co-founder Keiryn Darkwater identifies as a “Trans Boi” who believes “nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, etc. are all valid trans identities.”
It leads one to wonder: do these individuals believe that only their rights should be protected? Darkwater seems to be on a mission of requital against the religious upbringing “they” referenced as Christofacist nazism.
Trans individuals often espouse their disdain at being pigeonholed and labeled as potential child abusers, yet the Make Homeschool Safe Act seems to do just that to those who home educate. It is operating from a place of guilty until proven innocent. It seems those behind this group believe all home-school families require government overreach because they are abusive.
What does this Make Homeschool Safe Act mean for home-school families? Here’s a brief overview.
There is much more to this 23-page unconstitutional propaganda piece, so I urge you to read it in its entirety. It would require your children to follow the state immunization schedule, mandatory annual state assessments and evaluations, increased government involvement, and regulations including oversight by a “qualified educational professional” and district superintendent, and a 30-day waiting period for any child beginning home schooling.
This is a nationwide push from CRHE, and this legislation is being considered in Oklahoma, Illinois, West Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan. If it hasn’t made it to your state yet, it will. This organization has been peddling its agenda since 2013. This isn’t their first rodeo. Back in 2021, one of the CRHE founders, Rachel Coleman, participated in the Harvard Summit that created outcry from the home-school community. The anti-home-school summit was held virtually June 9–11, 2021. CRHE staff and board members participated in the summit, hosted by Professors Elizabeth Bartholet (Harvard University) and James Dwyer (William & Mary University) and the Child Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School. The three-day conference featured presentations by many of the leading home-schooling reform advocates in the United States.
CRHE representatives were featured prominently on the program, and presented on the following topics:
• Dr. Rachel Coleman, co-founder and advisor to the executive director: Preventing Child Maltreatment
• Sarah Henderson, advocacy and support coordinator: Homeschooling Alumni Speak
• Carmen Longoria-Green, board clerk, and Samantha Field, government relations director and board member: Current Politics and Potential for Future Action
• Dr. Chelsea McCracken, research director: Child Maltreatment
Strangely enough, an organization that claims it is dedicated to protecting children should consider taking a long hard look at just how well the government does at protecting the nation’s children. The public school system is rife with abuse and it is allowed to self-report.
Federal crime reporting requirements were established for colleges and universities in 1990 under the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, later formally named the Clery Act. No such federal law exists for K–12 schools.
“A study published by the government estimated 10% of K–12 students will experience sexual misconduct from a school employee, and these are only the ones we know about,” according to Fox News.
Additionally, according to a News Channel 5 report, in Tennessee the Department of Children Services was slapped with a lawsuit in June of 2024 for alleged abuse and violence against children with disabilities.
This is the same government that the CRHE feels needs to police home-school families.
All Christian home-school families are not part of the “Quiverfull” movement. They are not all like Jim Bob Duggar. The home-school population is diverse. Home-school families consist of many faiths as well as secular families.
What is my perspective regarding The Make Homeschool Safe Act? I believe it is an attack on the Constitutional rights of families across the United States from a group of individuals who seem to have a personal vendetta based off of their experiences or prejudices.
What can you do? Get involved.
Follow Free YOUR Children on all social media platforms as we continue to keep you informed about this legislation and more. Subscribe to our newsletters, podcasts, and Substack, read the Murfreesboro Pulse, and make sure you drop your contact info over on our website. Contact your legislators by phone and show up at their offices, and encourage them to not support freedom-snatching, unconstitutional legislation such as The Make Homeschool Safe Act. Support grassroots organizations such as Free YOUR Children who actually have boots on the ground fighting for your rights. Don’t allow propaganda to dictate the narrative.
