Nebraska’s Homeschool Crackdown Is Harming Kids And Infringing On Parental Rights

Imagine you are a mother whose daughter is bullied mercilessly in public school, to the extent that it has affected her attendance and put her at the mercy of a child protective services investigation.

Or imagine your son is falling further and further behind in a public school too busy to deal with learning disabilities, and CPS has come to check in on him.

Now imagine that you respond by withdrawing this child from school in order to educate them at home — for safety or academic flourishing. But you’re told your daughter must suffer for two more weeks, or your son must fall even further behind.

Why? Because the government doesn’t trust you with your own children.

This may sound like fiction, but this is exactly what families in Nebraska are facing, thanks to a new law that doesn’t solve the problem it purports to address, locks children in potentially harmful situations, and infringes on the fundamental right of parents to direct the education of their children.

Legislative Bill 937, an omnibus education bill recently signed into law by Gov. Jim Pillen, puts a new and unconstitutional restriction on parents’ freedom to choose what educational option is best for their child. Under this law, as soon as the Division of Children and Family Services (CFS) begins an investigation, the child is locked into attending their current school for up to 14 days while the investigation proceeds, before any finding is made or any court is involved.

The message is clear: The Nebraska government doesn’t trust parents who want to homeschool.

The original proposal, introduced earlier this legislative session, would have prevented parents from withdrawing their child from public or private school to homeschool if a report of child abuse or neglect was made against them, until the investigation for that report was completed. Such investigations often take at least 60 days to finish.

Of course, homeschooling families in Nebraska vigorously opposed this. Parents, a fellow lawyer of mine from the Home School Legal Defense Association, and the Nebraska Christian Home Educators Association testified in the Education Committee, and the bill was amended favorably.

Under the new language, only a completed investigation that substantiated claims of child abuse or neglect would temporarily prevent the parents from withdrawing their child to homeschool. But that wasn’t good enough for the Nebraska legislature. After numerous changes, the final language again included an unconstitutional infringement of the right to homeschool, and that version has now been signed into law.

The bill’s purported purpose is to prevent abusive parents from removing a child from view of school staff. But that’s not actually what the bill does. It assumes guilt on the mere possibility of evidence. And that assumption of guilt suddenly and magically removes the right of parents to make educational decisions for their child. 

The statistics also don’t justify this restriction on homeschooling. The most recently available CFS data shows that 66 percent of reports against families in 2024 did not warrant an investigation. And of the families who were investigated, there was only a one-in-four chance CFS would substantiate those allegations. And yet for each of those families, their child will be locked in their current educational institution while the investigation proceeds, no matter what the circumstances.

I have talked to the mothers of bullied daughters. I have counseled the parents of children struggling in public school who then flourished in school at home. I have assisted families under investigation by CPS solely because the school district did not agree with their decision to homeschool, or because a new staff member thought the family’s paperwork was inadequate and reported them for “educational neglect.” These are real children and real families who will be affected.

 An important principle is also at stake. The Ninth Circuit held in Calabretta v. Floyd (1999) that government has an interest in protecting children from physical abuse (an interest that homeschoolers wholeheartedly agree with and applaud), but its interest in child welfare also includes “protecting children’s interest in the privacy and dignity of their homes and in the lawfully exercised authority of their parents.”

The legislature has said to every child in the state: “We don’t care if you’re being bullied or harassed in school and your parents want to do something about it. Your parent doesn’t get to make that decision until we say they can.”

HSLDA agrees with the U.S. Supreme Court in its recent Mahmoud v. Taylor decision rejecting a “chilling vision of the power of the state to strip away the critical right of parents” to determine the education of their children.

We support approaches to child welfare that embrace a vision of parents freely exercising their right to help their children flourish in different educational settings. Unfortunately, that no longer includes the state of Nebraska.

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Darren Jones is senior counsel at HSLDA, the largest and oldest organization for homeschool advocacy.