2024—LB1027 Summary

A Summary of the Law Changes in LB1027 and its Legislative History

© NCHEA 8-21-2024

LB1027 Summary of Changes

LB1027 is a major change to the Nebraska home (exempt) school statute, 79-1601, starting in the 2024/25 school year.  The requirements for filing as an exempt school under NE statute 79-1601 have been reduced and simplified significantly.

LB1027 does the following:

1. 1. 1. Removes the optional government school visitations and government achievement testing of students,
      2. Replaces the submitting of evidence that the requirements of 79-1601 will be satisfied with assurance of such via signature,
      3. Removes providing information that individuals teaching exempt school students have demonstrated an alternative competency to monitor instruction or supervise students,
      4. Removes the old statutory requirement for both parents to file the exemption filing, thus allowing one parent to file as an exempt school. This will be very handy when one of the parents is unavailable when filing as compared to the old two parent requirement.  However, this change in the exempt school law does not prevent the other parent from challenging the first parent’s attempt to home school in court.  In this situation, this change in 79-1601 will likely only help when the opposing parent 1) is not willing to take court action, 2) is not willing to pay for court action, or 3) loses in court in opposition to home education. Before LB1027, excepting certain special circumstances, the NDE could not legally accept exempt school filings without the signature of both parents.

LB1027 Legislative History

The NCHEA created the original draft of LB1027 in October of 2023.  The NCHEA then consulted with HSLDA attorney for Nebraska, Kevin Boden, for his recommendations.  Kevin’s recommendations were few, but important in bolstering the desired outcomes of the bill.  Kevin also requested that single parent filing be included in the bill, which was included.

The NCHEA supported single parent filing in 2006 (LB1213-Sen. Adrian Smith) and in 2007 (LB101-Senator Philip Erdman), but a majority of the Education Committee refused to vote either bill out of the Education Committee.

In early November of 2023, the NCHEA submitted their new draft bill to Senator Robert Clements office, Legislative District 2, where it was reviewed and the NCHEA answered questions by Sen. Clements’ office.

Senator Clements graciously submitted the introduced version of LB1027 into the 2024 Legislature on January 5, the third day of the 2024 Legislature.

The LB1027 Education Committee hearing was early in the session on the twenty second of January.  The hearing went very well!  The proponent presentations included the NCHEA concern that only 6% of homeschools had received their 2023/24 acknowledgement letter as of mid-January 2024.    One proponent brought up a situation in southeast Nebraska (Lewiston) where a county attorney brought to trial a family who had filed Rule 13 in August 2023 but had not received the NDE acknowledgment letter; the county attorney allegedly refused to call NDE to confirm their registration.  The entire Education Committee found this situation offensive. No one testified in opposition to the bill.  However, the NDE and State Board of Education President Elizabeth Tegtmeier desired that the annual filing be retained, and the NDE desired that the LB1027 language referring to the authorized parent representative as the principal or administrator of the exempt school be removed.  It was clear that LB1027 would not get out of the Education Committee without removing the two portions as requested at the hearing.  The NCHEA quickly decided that these two items were the least important portions of the bill and agreed to the changes with Senator Clements’ office.

The 2/7/24 NCHEA Legislative Day was a resounding success.  We were pleased to have HSLDA’s attorney for Nebraska, Kevin Boden, speak to us.  We believe that our Legislative Day was very influential for LB1027 in that we filled the Norris Chamber north balcony and had 45 more people in the south balcony.  We then filled the available seating in the Nebraska Capitol’s Warner Chamber  where the homeschool parents and students, as always, presented themselves well which we believe influenced our Legislative Day speakers: Governor Jim Pillen, Sen. Robert Clements (LB1027 sponsor), Sen. Dave Murman (Education Committee Chairman), Sen. Beau Ballard, Sen. Loren Lippincott, Colleen Byelick (Chief Deputy & General Counsel for the  Secretary of State’s Office), Attorney General Mike Hilgers, and Auditor Mike Foley.  We are convinced that the presence of this many homeschool parents and students in the capitol, concerned about homeschool freedom, and wanting to hear from state governing officials, powerfully displayed our concern about legislation affecting home education; especially LB1027.  Every senator in the Nebraska Legislature knew that a large contingent of home educators and students were there, watching, on NCHEA Legislative Day.  We are fortunate in Nebraska to have many freedom-loving government officials.

In spite of the neutral testimony from the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) at the hearing, the NDE proposed draft amendments to LB1027 to potentially be used as Education Committee amendments.  The NCHEA opinion of the NDE proposed amendments was that they were potentially more controlling and restrictive than the existing, pre-LB1027 law, hence the NCHEA presented major objections to the NDE proposals.  The final version of the Education Committee amendment, AM2440, did not include language from the NDE proposals.  AM2440 was essentially the original LB1027 with the two points removed as requested at the hearing.

In order to be considered on the floor of the legislature, it is necessary for a bill to be designated as a priority bill.  On 2/14/24, the NCHEA learned that Senator Clements had graciously used his one allotment to request a Speaker Priority bill designation from Speaker John Arch on LB1027.  Senator Clements’ request to Speaker Arch, while necessary, was not necessarily sufficient when considering the intense competition from other senators also requesting Speaker Priority for other bills.  As a result, the NCHEA sent out an Alert on 2/15/24 urging members and friends to request Speaker Arch to designate LB1027 as one of his 25 Priority Bills.  On 2/20/24, Speaker Arch designated LB1027 as a Speaker Priority Bill; a true answer to prayer and action!

On 3/15/24, the NCHEA learned that Speaker Arch had been receiving emails from a couple of senators about putting inspections (homeschool visits) back into LB1027 since inspections are already in another law.  The NCHEA quickly found that 79-1605, although unenforced, was likely the other law allowing inspections, and the NCHEA immediately drafted four amendments to fix 79-1605.  HSLDA’s Kevin Boden reviewed all four and the one he selected was used.  The NCHEA then submitted what became AM3075 to Sen. Clements’ office on 3/17/24.

On the morning of 3/20/24, AM3075 was officially filed with the legislature, joining AM2440 and Senator Conrad’s AM2677.   That very evening, while on General File debate, all three amendments were adopted and LB1024 was voted to E&R towards Select File without opposition on any of the four votes.

During the Select File debate on the evening of 4/3/24, LB1027 was voted on to Final Reading by voice vote without opposition and with essentially no debate.

During the Final Reading debate on the evening of 4/11/24, LB1027 was passed without significant debate, 44-1-4NV.   Only one senator placed a vote on the legislative floor in opposition to LB1027.  See LB1027 Recorded Votes.

Governor Pillen approved LB1027 on 4/15/24.

LB1027 Post Legislative History:

The NCHEA was concerned that the NDE implementation of LB1027 might become a problem because of 1) the short time from passage of the bill as compared to the NDE July 15 filing deadline, and 2) the possibility, based on past observations, that the NDE might not fully implement all of the changes in LB1027.

On May 8, 2024, the NCHEA received an invitation to attend a NDE LB1027-related Exempt School Stakeholder Input Meeting on Zoom along with Senator Robert Clements & LA Mark Freeouf & Analyst Dan Wiles, NE Homeschool, and Catholic Homeschool Association of Omaha (CHAO).  David Splonskowski, Nick Lenzen, and David Lostroh accepted on behalf of the NCHEA. 

On May 15, 2024, the NCHEA emailed a letter to NDE’s Bryce Wilson outlining our concerns that 1) the NDE updated version of Rule 13 meet LB1027, and 2) that the concepts of LB1027 be implemented into the Exempt School filing process for the 2024/25 school year.   We attached a marked-up copy of the existing Rule 13 showing the appropriate LB1027-related changes to Rule 13 along with the letter listing the LB1027 section authorizing each change.  We believed that this early input to NDE could prevent any potential misunderstandings, thus helping to streamline the NDE implementation process.  Ultimately, there was no misunderstanding.

The May 22, 2024, presentation by NDE looked good with their intent to have both internet and paper exempt school filings available by June 3, 2024.  The NDE stated that an updated Rule 13 implementing LB1027 would probably not be in place until the 2025/26 school year, and that, in the meantime, LB1027 controls over any conflicting requirements in the current Rule 13.

On June 3, 2024, the NCHEA checked the NDE exempt school page and found that everything appeared to meet the intent of LB1027.  The NDE did a good job of implementing LB1027 quickly and accurately in time for the 2024/25 exempt school filings.

The NCHEA Leadership worked hard to get LB1027 through the Legislature successfully.  We sent out 11 NCHEA Legislative Alerts on LB1027, many of them with CALLS TO ACTION.  The NCHEA is grateful for the excellent responses to the Legislative Alerts.  We are confident that your actions made a huge difference on LB1027.  Your calls and emails were absolutely critical to the success of LB1027!

The NCHEA is grateful to God for moving the hearts of NCHEA members, NCHEA friends, and Nebraska State Senators to support LB1027 through passage into law!

If you benefit from LB1027, it would be an encouragement to Senator Robert Clements to let him know of your appreciation of his excellent sponsoring of LB1027!

This summary includes major NCHEA actions, but for the sake of brevity does not include every NCHEA action promoting LB1027.

This summary does not constitute the giving of legal advice.

David Lostroh, Legislative Coordinator