This legislative session in Tennessee was one for the history books for Free Your Children. We were laser-focused on several specific pieces of legislation—most notably, the voucher bill.

We spent countless days and hours in committee meetings and floor sessions. When we couldn’t be there in person, we were watching the livestreams. It left us regularly asking the question “who are these people and who elected them?” We watched as legislators displayed blatant disregard for bills being heard as they talked amongst themselves and played on their phones. We sat in hallways as committees were delayed for well over an hour while they enjoyed celebrations. We sat in committees waiting for them to begin, with numerous delays or cancellations and with seemingly little concern for the time of the taxpayers attending, the people who pay their salaries. We had multiple families who were denied their right to testify in committees. To say it seemed like a circus is an understatement.

By the time the session had closed, our children (who had accompanied us to the Capitol) could spout legislative terminology like pros and were regularly asking if the bills had been rolled, moved to the heel or put behind the budget or behind the calendar. If nothing else, they all earned an A+ in government. Mostly, they learned how government should not operate.

When the dust settled, the voucher bill was dead. A win, but only for the 2024 legislative session, because it will be back next year.

The fake Parental Rights Bill, the Parental Accountability Bill and the At-Risk Boarding Charter School bills were all sent to the Governor for his signature. Big Brother is in charge in Tennessee, medicalizing and militarizing our schools and selling out our children. Those bills will have a devastating impact on families and children in Tennessee, and those are just the tip of the iceberg.

Keeping up with legislation is more than a full-time job, and this session was by far the worst for families and children in our state.

Our group’s primary focus this session had been the Education Freedom Scholarship Act (the voucher bill). We had been told from the beginning that our efforts were futile. We were told that we could never compete with wealthy organizations or the plethora of lobbyists who flood the halls of Tennessee’s Cordell Hull Building daily. We were told the voucher bill was a done deal. We were told to give up and go home.

They were wrong.

After Phil Williams with News Channel 5 did an exposé piece on a “meeting with home-school advocates and Rep. Scott Cepicky,” the opposition seemed to really pick up steam. That meeting was with Free Your Children supporters and was requested by Rep. Cepicky. As Paul Harvey used to say, “And now, the rest of the story.”

The intention of the meeting was to discuss the conservative home-school opposition to vouchers across the state of Tennessee. I was contacted by Rep. Cepicky’s assistant, who relayed the time and meeting location to us. The meeting room would only hold around 20 people comfortably, so attendance was limited. We had a range of families represented from different Tennessee counties. We also had a parent present who has a child in private school. Everyone present was in direct opposition to vouchers.

At the beginning of the meeting Rep. Cepicky announced he would be recording the meeting and asked that we state our name before speaking. We were not opposed to the meeting being recorded and we told him that we too, would be recording. Numerous recordings by numerous people were made in that meeting.

Coming into the meeting, Cepicky knew that we were fundamentally opposed to the legislation, as we had expressed to him on multiple occasions that we wished to see the bill killed. We knew that as the sponsor of the House version of the bill, he was not going to be on board with that plan, so we came prepared to ask for complete autonomy in regard to our educational freedoms. We had also asked that Category IV schools be removed entirely from the bill. Since the majority of home-school families in the state are registered under Category IV, we felt this would offer some, albeit miniscule, protection to our educational freedoms. Our ultimate goal was, and continues to be, to have home-school families afforded the acknowledgment of their God-given constitutional right to home-school their children without being forced by law to register under a Category IV school in order to have the least regulation, as is currently the situation under Tennessee state educational law.

Rep. Cepicky asked us if we were requesting a constitutional amendment, and we said yes. He agreed he would carry it; however, he went on to state that giving us those freedoms would be devastating for the state of Tennessee. This portion of the meeting wasn’t covered in the media. The group of home-school and private school parents who met with Cepicky that day were not totally happy with the discussion. We felt he was not committed to carrying an amendment for us if he felt that true freedom was dangerous.

It was ironic that the angle of the media was that the meeting was an attempt to “protect private schools and home schools.” Absolutely nothing about school choice protects private schools and home schools. It destroys them, and Rep. Cepicky was the House sponsor of the voucher bill. Had I “leaked” the audio to Phil Williams I would have chosen very different audio clips to highlight.

The meeting was never a secret, and the fact that it was recorded was never a secret. We appreciated the fact that he was willing to meet with us and he even told us that he would gladly “leak” the meeting to the news media announcing that he was willing to carry the amendment. This seemed odd because he seemed very apprehensive about the prospect of complete and total autonomy in terms of educational freedom for parents. He did indeed go to the media by way of announcing it on the radio the following week, which surprised those of us in attendance. A large number of people knew the meeting had occurred and asked to listen to the recording which we provided. There was no reason not to. Do we not want an educated populace?

In the spirit of truth and transparency, I will soon be joined on my Free Your Children radio show by several individuals who were present at the meeting with Rep. Cepicky and have been present at the Capitol throughout this legislative process. We will be weighing in on all of these shenanigans in detail. Access the radio show on the Front Porch Radio podcast portal.

How the recording of our meeting ended up in the hands of Phil Williams I have no idea, but as I said from the beginning, “Whatever it takes to kill the bill.” And we did. And in true Paul Harvey fashion, “Now you know the rest of the story.”
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Tennessee State Capitol photo courtesy of George Walker IV / AP News