Connecticut HB 5468: What Homeschool Families Need to Know

Update — May 22, 2026. HB 5468 has passed. The Connecticut Senate approved the bill 22-14 in the closing hours of the 2026 session, and it has been enacted as Public Act 26-37. The provisions described below are now law in Connecticut, with the registration and demonstration framework phasing in through the 2028-29 school year. The original analysis is preserved below as it was written before the vote; the “Where It Stands” section near the end has been updated to reflect the outcome and what comes next.

A note from Hearth before we begin. Until now, our blog has been Utah-focused. We’ve covered the Utah Fits All scholarship, UTCH, and the Notice of Intent process in our home state. That has been deliberate – we built Hearth here, and we wanted to start by being useful to the families closest to us.

This post is the start of something different.

Hearth is expanding to serve families beyond Utah, and our coverage is going to follow. Going forward, expect more reporting on homeschool policy, resources, and community across additional states.

But here is the bigger reason we are writing about a Connecticut bill from a Utah-based platform: what happens in Connecticut does not stay in Connecticut. If you homeschool – anywhere – the conversation Connecticut is having right now is one you should be tracking. The most ambitious homeschool oversight legislation in a generation is moving through the state this week, and similar proposals are almost certain to surface in other state legislatures in the coming year. The language, the constitutional arguments, and the political dynamics on display in Hartford will shape those future debates wherever they emerge. The homeschool community stays informed and organized by paying attention to all of it – not just to what is happening down the road.

Connecticut is one of about a dozen states that has never formally regulated homeschooling. The law on the books traces back to 1650 – over 375 years old. HB 5468 would replace it with the most significant homeschool oversight framework the state has ever attempted.

The Short Version

If you only have five minutes, here is what is happening.

What the bill does. HB 5468 repeals Connecticut’s existing homeschool statute (CGS Section 10-184) and replaces it with three new requirements:

1. In-person withdrawal. Parents must appear in person at the local school district to file a homeschool withdrawal form. Today, a single written notice is enough.
2. A DCF records check. Before the withdrawal is finalized, the school district checks the Department of Children and Families abuse-and-neglect registry and active investigation database for every adult in the household. If any household member is on the registry or under active investigation, the family can be blocked from homeschooling.
3. An annual demonstration of instruction. Families show each year that the child is receiving “equivalent instruction” – through a portfolio of work, standardized test scores, or other academic records.

If enacted, the law would take effect July 1, 2026, with the full registration and demonstration framework phasing in for the 2028-29 school year.

Where it stands. The Connecticut House passed the bill 96-53 on April 23, 2026, after a marathon, line-by-line floor debate. The Senate followed with a 22-14 vote on May 4, and the bill was enacted as Public Act 26-37. The law takes effect July 1, 2026, with the registration and demonstration framework phasing in for the 2028-29 school year.

Why supporters back it. Three high-profile child-abuse cases in Connecticut – including the deaths of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García and 12-year-old Eve Rogers, and the Waterbury captivity case – have all involved children pulled from public school under the label of homeschooling. Schools are the largest source of reports to DCF; when a child is withdrawn from school with no follow-up, mandated reporters lose visibility. Supporters argue that minimal in-person notification, a one-time records check, and an annual touchpoint are reasonable protections that bring Connecticut in line with most other states.

Why opponents oppose it. In every one of the catalyst cases, DCF already had extensive prior involvement with the family – and missed the warning signs. Opponents argue the failure was not a lack of regulatory authority over homeschoolers but a failure within the existing child welfare system. They also raise constitutional concerns: that requiring DCF clearance before exercising a constitutionally protected right inverts the presumption of innocence, and that “equivalent instruction” standards leave too much room for inconsistent enforcement across districts.

What to watch. Expect parallel proposals to surface in other states in the next legislative cycle. The language, constitutional arguments, and political dynamics on display in Hartford will shape those future debates.

If that is all you needed, thank you for reading. If you want the full picture – the cases, the constitutional arguments, the state-by-state comparison, and the legislative history – keep going.

The Full Story

A 375-Year-Old Law on the Edge

Connecticut’s existing homeschool statute traces back to a colonial-era law from 1650 – predating the United States itself by more than a century. The current language is brief: parents must provide their children with “equivalent instruction” in the studies taught in public schools. There is no notification requirement, no testing, no portfolio review, no curriculum approval. For 375 years, the state has trusted parents to define and deliver “equivalent” without a verification mechanism.

That has made Connecticut an outlier. Roughly forty states have some form of formal homeschool oversight. Connecticut, along with about a dozen others, has none.

HB 5468 would not just amend the existing statute – it would repeal Section 10-184 in its entirety and replace it with a new framework. That is a substantial structural change, and it is part of why the debate has been so intense.

The Three Cases That Drove the Bill

Three child-welfare cases have been cited repeatedly by lawmakers as the reason this bill exists. Each one is genuinely horrifying. Each one also has a complicating factor that opponents of the bill emphasize: in every case, DCF was already involved with the family – sometimes for years – before the harm came to light.

Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García (New Britain)

Eleven-year-old Mimi Torres-García was found in a plastic storage bin behind an abandoned house in New Britain in October 2025. An autopsy confirmed her cause of death was child abuse and starvation. She weighed 27 pounds and had a single blueberry in her stomach. Amphetamines, not prescribed to her, were found in her system.

Her mother had emailed Farmington Public Schools in July 2024 to announce she would be homeschooling. Less than two months later, the child was dead. Her mother, her mother’s boyfriend, and an aunt have all been charged in connection with the death.

DCF had a history with this family stretching back over a decade. In January 2025 – weeks after police allege the child had already been killed – DCF conducted a video welfare check with someone the mother claimed was Mimi, then closed the case.

There is a factual dispute that has become central to the debate. Court documents released by attorney Deborah Stevenson of the National Home Education Legal Defense indicate that Mimi was killed on June 21, 2024, while still enrolled in public school. The homeschool withdrawal form was not signed until August 26 – more than a month after her death. Opponents of HB 5468 cite this timeline as evidence that the case is not, at root, a homeschooling failure.

The Waterbury Captivity Case

In February 2025, firefighters responding to a house fire on Blake Street in Waterbury rescued a 32-year-old man – known publicly only as “S” – who was 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 68 pounds. He told investigators that his stepmother, Kimberly Sullivan, had kept him locked in an 8-by-9-foot room for roughly twenty years.

School records show “S” stopped attending Barnard Elementary in 2004 or 2005, in fourth grade, after Sullivan informed the district she would homeschool him. His former principal, Tom Pannone, later said he and his teachers had called DCF dozens of times per year out of concern for the boy’s well-being. The child was reportedly constantly hungry, drinking water from the toilet, taking food from other children. Police visited the home twice and reported no concerns. DCF visited and took no substantive action.

Sullivan was arrested in March 2025 and charged with kidnapping, assault, unlawful restraint, cruelty to persons, and reckless endangerment. She has denied the allegations. “S” has since publicly identified himself and stated his intent to reclaim control of his life.

Eve Rogers (Enfield)

Twelve-year-old Eve Rogers was found dead in her bedroom in Enfield on March 18, 2026. Her stepfather, Anthony Federline, was charged with first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor after DNA evidence was linked to signs of sexual assault at the scene.

Eve had been homeschooled since September 2022. DCF had opened an investigation into the family one week before her death, after police found her walking alone near a gas station at 2:30 a.m. The investigation was still underway when she was found dead.

The Pattern: A DCF Question, Not Just a Homeschool Question

The throughline across all three cases is hard to miss: DCF was already involved, sometimes for years, sometimes recently, sometimes both. The system had information. The system did not act on it effectively.

This is the heart of the strategic disagreement about the bill. Supporters argue homeschooling created a structural blind spot – without the daily presence of teachers and counselors as mandated reporters, abuse could continue unnoticed, and even DCF’s involvement was not enough without the school touchpoint. They cite analysis from the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, which reviewed over 500 cases and found that roughly three in five children abused by a homeschooling parent only had their case surface after the child had died or suffered serious harm.

Opponents argue that in each Connecticut case, the information existed. The reports were made. The investigations were opened. What failed was execution – and that adding a registration form to the front end will not fix what failed at the back end.

Both views can be partially right at the same time. That is part of why this bill is hard.

What HB 5468 Actually Does

The version of the bill that passed the House – as amended by floor amendment LCO 4428 – is meaningfully narrower than the original committee version. Several provisions were removed in the rewrite.

In-person withdrawal. Today, parents pulling a child from public school for homeschooling can satisfy the requirement with a single written notice. Under HB 5468, the parent would have to appear in person at the school district to complete a withdrawal form. The intent is to ensure the decision is deliberate and that school staff get an in-person interaction with the family.

DCF records check. Before the withdrawal is finalized, the district must check both the DCF abuse-and-neglect registry and the active investigation database. The check covers every adult in the household. If any household member is on the registry or under active investigation, the family can be blocked from homeschooling. The bill is explicit that this records check does not constitute a “report” to DCF and does not initiate an investigation. That distinction was a focal point of the House floor debate – supporters insisted it was a passive lookup, opponents argued it functions as prior restraint regardless of how it is labeled.

Annual demonstration of instruction. Families would have to demonstrate annually that their child is receiving equivalent instruction. The bill accepts a portfolio of student work, standardized test results, or other academic records. The original committee version required more detailed annual submissions; the floor amendment scaled this back to win swing votes.

What was removed. The original bill also included a provision allowing homeschooled students to take up to two classes at public schools and participate in extracurricular activities. This was dropped in the rewrite. An earlier version also included a more detailed annual reporting requirement, which was softened in the House amendment. Whether those provisions return in the Senate is one of the open questions.

Effective date and implementation. If enacted, the law takes effect July 1, 2026. The full registration-and-demonstration framework would apply beginning in the 2028-29 school year. The State Department of Education would have until July 1, 2027 to issue implementation guidance.

The Constitutional Question

The legal debate sits at the intersection of two well-established constitutional traditions. Both sides are working from the same Supreme Court cases.

Meyer, Pierce, and the foundation of parental rights. Two cases from the 1920s are the foundation. In Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), the Supreme Court struck down a state law banning instruction in foreign languages before eighth grade. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), the Court struck down an Oregon law requiring all children to attend public school. Together, these cases established that parents have a Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest in directing the upbringing and education of their children. Legal scholars have long argued that Meyer and Pierce imply a constitutional right to homeschool, even though the cases predate widespread homeschooling and do not name it directly.

Where the state’s authority comes in. The Supreme Court has also been clear that parental rights are not absolute. Pierce itself acknowledged the state’s power to “reasonably regulate all schools.” In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) – the famous Amish schooling case – the Court ruled in favor of the parents but explicitly framed it as a balancing test against state interests. In Runyon v. McCrary (1976), the Court stated that parents have no constitutional right to provide private school education “unfettered by reasonable government regulation.” Supporters of HB 5468 lean heavily on these cases. They argue the bill is a textbook example of “reasonable regulation” – minimal, comparable to what most other states already require, and addressed at a genuine state interest in child welfare.

How each side reads the same cases. Opponents – including the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which has circulated a legal memo to state senators – raise four constitutional concerns:

• Presumption of guilt. Requiring a DCF records check on every homeschool family treats every family as a potential abuser, requiring them to prove they are not before exercising a constitutional right.
• Prior restraint. Conditioning the exercise of a constitutionally protected right on government clearance is, in their reading, a permitting scheme on a fundamental right – analogous to requiring a permit before exercising free speech.
• Vagueness and uneven enforcement. “Equivalent instruction” leaves significant room for subjective interpretation by individual school districts, raising due process concerns and creating the conditions for arbitrary enforcement.
• Scope of the registry check. The bill blocks homeschooling not only for adults substantiated on the registry, but for those merely under active investigation – before any finding has been made.

Supporters’ counter-arguments are equally rooted in case law: that the burden imposed is administrative and modest, that the state’s interest in child welfare is compelling, and that bringing Connecticut in line with the regulatory baseline most states already operate under is exactly the kind of “reasonable regulation” Runyon contemplates.

Connecticut vs. Other States

Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, but the regulation varies wildly. The standard typology sorts states into four tiers.

If HB 5468 passes, Connecticut moves from the lowest tier to the moderate tier – roughly comparable to Ohio, Virginia, or Colorado. It would not become a high-regulation state on the order of Massachusetts or New York. The framing matters: this is not Connecticut becoming the most-regulated state, it is Connecticut joining the middle.

The Massachusetts comparison comes up often in the debate. Massachusetts requires parents to notify the local school board, submit educational plans, and provide proof of instruction through teacher evaluations, written reports, or standardized tests. School boards maintain regular contact with families. HSLDA’s litigation team has pointed to Massachusetts as a model where built-in assessment touchpoints create regular interactions that can surface concerns about a child’s well-being – the exact mechanism HB 5468 supporters argue is missing in Connecticut.

How We Got Here: The Legislative Path

This bill did not appear out of nowhere. Rep. Jennifer Leeper (D-Fairfield), co-chair of the Education Committee and the bill’s primary champion, has said the legislature has been discussing some version of homeschool oversight for over twenty years. What changed was the political conditions.

October 2025. Mimi Torres-García’s body is found. House Speaker Matt Ritter signals that legislative action on both DCF accountability and homeschool oversight is coming. Governor Ned Lamont indicates support.

February 2026. The 2026 regular session opens. Two vehicles emerge: HB 5468, the standalone bill in the Education Committee, and a provision (Section 5) in Senate Bill 6, the omnibus child-welfare bill, that would have required the State Department of Education to notify DCF whenever a parent communicated intent to homeschool.

March 3, 2026. The State Department of Education raises FERPA concerns about the SB 6 provision. Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker testifies that FERPA prohibits her department from disclosing student information in the manner SB 6 contemplated.

March 2026 – public hearing. More than 200 people sign up to testify. Testimony runs past midnight, more than 12 hours total. The vast majority of those testifying – homeschool parents and children – oppose the bill.

March 18, 2026. The Education Committee approves HB 5468 by a vote of 26-20. Four Democrats join all Republicans in opposition.

March 18, 2026 (same day, separately). Eve Rogers’s death is reported. The case adds further weight to the bill’s momentum.

April 14, 2026. The Appropriations Committee strips the homeschool provision from SB 6, leaving HB 5468 as the sole legislative vehicle.

April 17, 2026. Bill sponsors release a substantial rewrite. The annual portfolio submission requirement is removed; the public-school-access and extracurricular provisions are dropped. The DCF records check and in-person notification stay in. The Appropriations Committee advances the rewrite, with several Democrats voting yes “to keep it alive” without committing on a final vote.

April 23, 2026. The House debates HB 5468 at length. Rep. Lezlye Zupkus (R-Prospect) questions the sponsor line by line for hours. The bill passes 96-53.

Late April 2026. Attorney Deborah Stevenson of NHELD files a formal complaint requesting an audit of the state’s School Fund and Education Cost Sharing monies, raising constitutional questions about whether public education funds can be used to administer oversight of families who are not in the public school system. HSLDA mobilizes families to contact senators. A press conference is held at the Legislative Office Building on April 30.

Where It Stands Now (updated May 22, 2026)

HB 5468 passed. On May 4, 2026, the Connecticut Senate approved the bill 22-14 in the closing hours of the legislative session, largely along party lines. The bill was then enacted as Public Act 26-37. The law takes effect July 1, 2026, with the registration and demonstration framework phasing in through the 2028-29 school year.

The Democratic caucus held together more firmly in the Senate than the earlier committee margins suggested they might. Republican Minority Leader Vinnie Candelora’s preference for a narrower bill – focused on families with active DCF cases rather than all homeschoolers – did not gain enough Democratic support to reshape the legislation before the final vote.

The bill now becomes the legal baseline Connecticut homeschool families operate under. Expect HSLDA, NHELD, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, and other organizations to publish implementation guidance over the coming months. Constitutional challenges are possible but, as of this update, have not been filed.

The Open Questions

A few questions are worth keeping in mind, regardless of how the next 48 hours play out.

The DCF accountability question. If the existing system failed to act on information it already had in three highly publicized cases, would adding new reporting requirements for homeschool families meaningfully change outcomes? This is not a rhetorical question – it is the central empirical question – and the answer is unlikely to be settled in a legislative session.

The regulatory design question. The bill addresses two distinct problems at once: educational neglect and physical abuse. Portfolio review and test scores can identify the first. They are unlikely to uncover the second. The DCF records check addresses the second, but only for families already known to the system. The gap between these tools and the cases used to justify the bill is part of the policy challenge.

The data question. Connecticut does not currently track how many children are homeschooled. State education officials estimate that approximately 1,800 students left public school for homeschooling in 2025, and project that the number could exceed 10,000 within six years. The absence of basic data about who is being homeschooled – and how many are flourishing or struggling – is itself a structural issue, and it will affect the implementation conversation regardless of how the bill is voted.

The federalism question. Most other states already operate within the moderate-regulation tier. Connecticut just went through this debate, in a compressed timeframe, with significant public pressure – and the result is now on the books. New legislative proposals in other states are likely to draw on the Connecticut text – or to react against it.

Where to Learn More

If you want to read further:

• The full bill text and legislative history are available through the Connecticut General Assembly bill status portal under HB 5468.
• HSLDA has published its constitutional analysis. The Coalition for Responsible Home Education and the Office of the Child Advocate publish analyses from the other side of the debate.
• CT Mirror and Connecticut Public have provided the most detailed running coverage. The Yankee Institute, NBC Connecticut, WFSB, and Western Mass News have additional reporting.
• The Office of Legislative Research’s report 94-R-0847 has historical context on Connecticut’s homeschool statute.
• Choose Education Independence has been running an ongoing analysis of the bill from the homeschool advocacy perspective.

One More Note

Hearth Learning is a homeschool platform, and we serve families from across the political spectrum. We do not take a position on HB 5468. We have tried to lay out, as honestly as we can, what the bill does, what supporters and opponents are arguing, what the constitutional landscape looks like, and how Connecticut compares to other states. The decisions belong to the people directly affected – Connecticut families and the senators who answer to them.

If you are a Connecticut family figuring out what the new law means for you, contact HSLDA, NHELD, or the Coalition for Responsible Home Education for implementation guidance specific to your situation.