Testimony to the Pennsylvania House Education Committee on January 9, 2002 from Peter B. Hrycenko for HB1098


My name is Peter B. Hrycenko and I live in Allentown. I am the leader of a statewide coalition of homeschoolers and others interested in seeing that all homeschoolers in Pennsylvania may be given the right to participate in extracurriculars with their local public schools. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association HSLDA www.hslda.org there are now fourteen states protecting homeschoolers with equal access laws. As homeschooling grows slowly, you hear more about equal access, as children big and small of homeschool parents who pay school real estate taxes come forward. Again according to HSLDA, around 2.5% of any homeschool population might come to participate in equal access. For Pennsylvania's 22,000 homeschoolers that could mean 550 total statewide. The PA Department of Education's survey in 9/2000 tells us that already 45.6% of Pennsylvania school districts are blessed with extracurricular equal access. If half the schools have it, then why not the rest? Homeschool families are part of their very community. There will always be homeschoolers and public school officials here and there who may dislike equal access and believe in total separation of the schooling culture systems for dread of cross-contamination and loss of power and control in their domains. But I believe that half of our schools have shown they put interests of children before politics. As an activist, I can only build upon the magnanimity of what has been established by the kind hearts of public educators.

My wife Irene and I have seven children and all have been homeschooled since birth. We decided early on that the best place for mom is in the home, imparting values and nurturing the next generation of Americans. Our own moms had been at home for us and that great and good experience led us to make the financial sacrifice to live on one income. I'm a graduate of Muhlenberg College. My wife is a graduate of Hunter College and taught in public elementary school and ran a daycare in New York City before coming to Pennsylvania. Even though homeschooling has been with us since Adam and Eve, just twenty years ago it was considered illegal in America. Today it is legal in all states. Thanks to our Legislature, our dedicated homeschool pioneers and a favorable reading of the U.S. Constitution, Act 169 of 1988 was passed in Pennsylvania to recognize homeschooling. Homeschooling is an affirmation of a way of life and not an automatic rejection of public schooling. Many homeschoolers today have never been inside the public education system. Schools without walls, mixed age groups. Courts of the land have affirmed that it is the responsibility of the parents to insure their child's education. But Act 169 neither included nor excluded the possibility of homeschoolers in partnership, participating in extracurriculars with their local public schools.

The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletics Association PIAA has decided that it is the local school boards who individually district by district make that decision. Therein is the challenge we face today. When homeschoolers get turned down for equal access because a board doesn't like it, the families might opt to sell their house and move to a friendly district next door, or they can work for a couple years to unseat unfriendly board members, or they can sit and wait for a change or they can sue. Meanwhile the child suffers, divorced from his community activity through no fault of his own.

I characterize my homeschool relationship with the Allentown School District as superb. We have friends in the faculty and the administration who quietly support our quest for equal access. Whenever I have a homeschooling concern, the administration is quick to help. I admire their public service. However when the school board voted 5 to 4 to keep my then 14 year old son Nestor off the Allen High School soccer team, with the help of a sports attorney I sued our district. A Preliminary Injunction hearing was held October 12, 2000 and a trial is coming this year. Tens of thousands of tax dollars, yours and mine, have been spent fighting a good teenager. Pennsylvania has had at least three other such court cases over the past decade. How many children seeking equal access, and even their public school allies, without the light of news media and patrons in their community, have quietly suffered in the dark? How long must the battles go on from fiefdom to fiefdom? I believe in local control. But this is one decision that should be done by the Legislature starting in the House of the People. Equal access support runs strong back in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania where we live and some of the newspaper stories from The Morning Call I present to you today will convey that. Our radio and television stations maintain an interest and are always watching. On a warm night in August of 2000, soccer players from William Allen High School went to the Allentown School Board on behalf of my son. Under the tense circumstances of the day I didn't expect them to appear, but they did. "I may not understand all the reasons why he can't [play], but I do know that he's good guy and he likes to play soccer and we want him to play soccer," said one player. "I really don't know what is standing in his way. I guess policy. But sometimes that's wrong and I just hope that the right decision is made." The captain of the soccer team delivered a petition from sports teams at Allen High School asking for Nestor. What was the response from the school board president? A bizarre bushwacking speech at the end of meeting and later a few private laughs. Ever wonder why Education gets a black eye? Alas, Nestor no longer plays soccer. In an increasingly competitive sports world, a player without a high school team may find himself without a spot on premier club teams for the Winter/Spring seasons.

Homeschoolers take education seriously and some states really believe it. For homeschoolers in Arizona there is no record keeping, testing, attendance, teacher qualifications required. Yet they have equal access. I asked the president of Arizona Families for Home Education how does one deal with that broad freedom. He replied that you have to think outside of the box, it is a conditioning of the mind. I asked the top lawyer in the Vermont Education Department how officials allow equal access. He said the word is trust, you have to trust the homeschoolers. By the way, Patrick J. Buchanan has a new book out The Death of the West. Our national borders and identity are being erased. It's as if our national leaders could care less. The American mom-and-pop family is going extinct. We have allowed our God of Israel to become unwelcome in many schools and courtrooms. There is a lot to think about for our lifetime. Allowing homeschoolers equal access in Pennsylvania will make the world a little better.