We have a Hillsorough county homeschool parent who is being asked to submit test scores in addition to her annual homeschool evaluation form. This is against the state mandate requirements, correct?

My grandson has been awarded the Pep scholarship. He's 5 and has never attended school. Will there be a time/age that he has to send a notification of withdrawal to public school district or is he fine just to continue on while he's receiving Pep?

If you caught our Livestream earlier today, you heard Jason explaining the strike-all amendment that dropped this morning for SB0248. (A strike-all amendment is one which replaces the entire language of the bill with new language.) Jason and Brenda had previously worked with legislators on SB248, including a section of language to protect home education and PEP students' rights to participate in extracurriculars (including sports) at their schools of choice in their districts. This right has been available to home education students since the Craig Dickinson Act was first put into law in the 1990s, but recently, some school districts have used a loophole in the Open Enrollment statutes to deny home education and PEP students from participating in extracurriculars at those schools. The language of the SB0248 bill, prior to today's strike-all amendment, fixed that loophole. As of this morning, the new language of the strike-all would've restricted home education and PEP students to playing sports ONLY at their zoned schools, unless the sport they wanted wasn't offered at that school. Jason and Brenda were on phone calls, emails, etc. all morning, communicating with Senate staff and expressing concerns about the negative impacts of this change for homeschoolers. BUT Now we can share the news that the strike-all amendment has been repealed! This essentially puts the bill back to where it was before this amendment. Jason and Brenda will continue to watch this bill as it moves through committees. It is being heard in the Rules committee tomorrow.