The Ad Hoc Committee for Illinois Home Education Legal and Legislative Matters (Ad Hoc) is aware that several other states have had legal challenges to homeschooling already this season.
In anticipation of at least one IL Congressional Representative silly enough to challenge homeschooling this year, Ad Hoc requests all experienced Illinois homeschoolers and homeschool graduates to write positive letters with the following recommendations:
Dated and addressed to “To Whom it May Concern”
Under 1 page in length
No grammatical or spelling errors
Signed with name, city and state
Notarized when possible (to prove this is a grassroots effort and not 5 people writing 1000 letters each)
Mailed to Ad Hoc Committee, PO Box 74, Ringwood, IL 60072 OR emailed to contact@il-adhoc.org
It is hoped we could have several 1000 before May 1st, 2025 to have if we need them at a hearing.
As an example (but please do not copy):
To Whom it May Concern,
I am writing in support of maintaining our current homeschooling freedoms in Illinois. As a homeschool graduate, I am very thankful my parents had the freedom to homeschool our family. We each had numerous health challenges growing up, and our parent’s freedom to individualize our homeschooling so that our unique needs could be met made a huge difference in our lives. I am happy to say we are all doing great today!
Thank you for your support of homeschooling freedoms!
Ima Citizen
Springfield, Illinois
Illinois Homeschool Association
(Formerly Illinois H.O.U.S.E.)
Illinois Homeschool Association (ILHSA) is a statewide network of people involved in homeschooling. We are nonsectarian (not religious based) and inclusive for all.
Membership in ILHSA offers a certain amount of assurance to homeschoolers regarding legal issues. ILHSA holds a position on the board of the Ad Hoc Committee for Illinois Homeschool Legal and Legislative Matters, a group that very carefully monitors legal and legislative activity that can potentially have an effect on homeschools. Consulting and working together with other organizations on Ad Hoc, ILHSA is able to supply reliable and timely information to its members regarding legal issues.
We provide this web page that answers most questions including common questions such as how to withdraw a child from public school, what the school district needs from homeschooling families and how to deal with officials who ask for more than they're entitled to receive.
Homeschool Freedoms Aren't Free, Feb 16, 2019
As Illinois homeschoolers are all aware we are the beneficiaries of decades of our predecessors carefully monitoring what is happening in our state legislature and several times a year quietly taking action on small but crucial concerns. On occasion, word is sent out throughout the homeschooling community to please take action on a specific issue because we couldn't make it go away quietly, but these have, thankfully, been rare.
The primary way we have been able to monitor such activity in the Illinois legislature is through a wonderful, dedicated lobbyist. Lobbyists need to be paid.
We are urging every Illinois home educator or supporter of home education to please join a local group that is a member one of the statewide groups that has a seat on the Ad Hoc Committee or to join one of these statewide groups as an individual. Your membership dues today will help keep a lobbyist in Springfield tomorrow.
Contact us via email at ContactUs@ilhsa.org or leave a message at (708) 816.4546 and someone will return your call as soon as possible.