I'm sure you've all heard our group referred to as simply "Ad Hoc", which means "concerned with a particular end or purpose". But our whole name is The Ad Hoc Committee for Illinois Home Education Legal and Legislative Matters. Our whole purpose is to address those things.
This group was founded in 1984, so it's been in existence for more than forty years. Since before the internet. Our aim was to join with all the other statewide homeschool organizations to present a united front to legislators and school officials in warding off efforts on their part to infringe on our rights to direct the education of our own children.
In this goal, we have been wonderfully successful. I myself, along with others, have been active in defeating numerous bills that would have registered us, forced us to have our curricula and our children's progress approved by people who do not even need to meet those same standards for the children officially in their own care.
In the early years, Ad Hoc was a coalition of five different organizations, Home Oriented Unique Schooling Experience (HOUSE), the Network of Illinois Catholic Home Educators (NICHE), Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE), Clonlara, and Christian Liberty Academy (CLA). At one point, because of changes in its focus, Clonlara left, and then the Illinois Unschooling Network (IUN) joined. A few years later, CLA and IUN left Ad Hoc, and we are now down to three: NICHE (reorganized as RCHEN - Roman Catholic Home Educators Network), and ICHE (Illinois Christian Home Educators), and HOUSE (now ILHSA, or the Illinois Homeschooling Association). I must explain that ILHSA is an inclusive group - not just for non Christians as some believe, but for anyone wanting a support group for all homeschoolers regardless of their religion, ethnic background, or homeschooling philosophy. Thus, ILHSA consists of homeschoolers of all sorts.
Those groups are very diverse but we work well together because of our requirement for consensus in every action we take and in our adamant belief that our whole goal is to maintain homeschooling freedoms. As worthy as other goals may be, they are not the purpose of this group. Whenever an issue comes up, Ad Hoc discusses it in a respectful manner, and then the representatives from the three member organizations call for a consensus. If even one member disagrees after an extended discussion, there is no consensus, and no action is taken. Even if that happens, the reps can go back to their respective groups and explain the issue and then the individual groups can decide to take action on their own. It works well for all the groups, because there is great sharing of information, and when there is consensus, a powerful statement about what homeschoolers think about an issue can be released.
You've now heard about how Ad Hoc represents three major organizations. Ad Hoc is, in its turn, sends a representative to the Illinois Coalition of Nonpublic Schools (ICNS), where we, along with other nonpublic schools - the brick-and-mortar private schools, as we call them - are able to keep an eye on any related legislation through our very experienced, alert, and insightful lobbyists.
We, in Ad Hoc, are all unpaid volunteers, and we do this year in, and year out, because ongoing vigilance is vital so that even small bills that don't target homeschoolers but might affect us unreasonably can be caught and addressed. For example, one very short bill was brought to our attention by our lobbyist that would require annual water tests for lead at all private schools. I was Ad Hoc's rep to ICNS at the time, and I spoke to our lobbyist about it. He went straight to the sponsor and was able to insert an amendment to the effect that this would only apply to private schools with over fifteen students. The sponsor was perfectly willing, and we never had to even bring it to the attention of the state's homeschoolers. This is the kind of thing Ad Hoc has been doing for Illinois homeschoolers for years without most of them even knowing.
As I said, we are unpaid volunteers, but we do require funds because we pay dues to ICNS and we support our two lobbyists who must be paid for the work they do. Our membership organizations pay dues to Ad Hoc, so that we can continue to be effective and keep our lines of communication open for whenever they are needed. In the early years we met in person only when there was an issue. Now though, we meet quarterly on Zoom, and we discuss via email throughout the year. At the moment, the emails are going by many times a day, of course, because of the current bill which you have probably heard about.
Just as various homeschooling organizations have changed since the beginning of this movement, the structure of homeschooling itself has also changed, partly because of the ability of the internet to form support groups of people widely spread out geographically, but also because homeschooling has now become so widespread that innovative new ways of educating have emerged: coops and microschools, for two such examples.
Ad Hoc is still as active as we ever were, but we know we are not representing all homeschoolers as we did in years past. That's why we are trying to reach out to all the Facebook groups, and other homeschooling groups, to try to bring you all into the fold. We want to encourage you all to let us know your thoughts about your priorities as homeschoolers, and how best to communicate with others about how to maintain freedoms for homeschoolers, and indeed, for all parents, in Illinois.
We want to include as many Illinois homeschoolers as possible in our organization so that when we send our lobbyists to Springfield, they can say that they represent most of the homeschoolers in Illinois.
Up until now, we have required our member organizations to be statewide organizations, grassroots rather than top-down, be in agreement with our main goals and philosophy, and understand and be willing to work with the other organizations through the methods of consensus. We have recently decided to add a second category of membership, so that we can include groups that do not meet all those requirements as non-voting members, but who want to be part of what we do. We want to hear what all Illinois homeschoolers are thinking, and for them all to see how Ad Hoc works in real time, and so that you may be able to act in unity with us.
Our voting member organizations pay dues to Ad Hoc of $400/annually, which has historically been enough, but is now not sufficient if we are to keep up with the increasing cost of ICNS membership and support of our lobbyists. We are asking for $100 per year from non-voting member organizations and we do hope that you can divide it among your homeschooling families so that it is not a hardship for anyone. But if there are special circumstances that make even that impossible, the fee can be adjusted or waived by a consensus of the board. Please go home to your groups and explain what we are about and seriously consider joining with Ad Hoc to advance our efforts in the future.