Montana homeschoolers applaud new law streamlining process, removing previous regulations

Homeschoolers in Montana are celebrating the passage of recent legislation removing previous requirements and recognizing homeschooling as its own educational option.

“The most important thing it does, it just continues to protect the homeschool freedoms that we have for families in Montana,” Lindsey Nehring, a homeschool mom of five, told Scripps’ KRTV News.

House Bill 778, which Gov. Greg Gianforte signed into law in May, revised laws equating homeschools with other nonpublic school options.

“It doesn’t affect really much in the day-to-day life of homeschooling families in Montana,” Nehring said. “But what it does do is it separates legally homeschools from private schools. The other main thing it does is it removes the requirement for homeschool families to keep immunization records and provide them to the superintendent if they’re requested.”

‘So much opportunity’ for homeschool families

The number of Montana homeschoolers has increased in recent years, rising 9.3% in the 2023-24 school year to 8,524 students, according to the state’s website.

“I feel like there’s so much opportunity and so many engaging activities for homeschoolers now that really it’s almost hard to protect our schedule,” Nehring said.

Nehring helps run an active Facebook group for homeschool families in Great Falls, the state’s third-largest city at more than 60,000 residents.

The group has nearly 1,000 members and features online resources across the area, state and nation for those “just beginning your homeschool journey or are still considering homeschooling.”

Other states passing homeschool-friendly bills in the last legislative session include Wyoming and Texas.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed the Homeschool Freedom Act into law in February, which struck down the former requirement for families to notify the government before beginning to homeschool.

“Parental rights are reflected and upheld in the passage of this bill, and Wyoming joins 11 other states that require no notice of intent to homeschool,” said Homeschool Wyoming President Brenna Lowry at the time. “This is an historic moment as Wyoming is the first state in our nation’s history to roll back homeschool regulations.”

Meanwhile, the Lone Star State streamlined automatic admissions and financial aid eligibility for homeschoolers entering higher educational institutions with Texas House Bill 3041, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in June.

“With HB 3041, colleges will begin using the median instead of the average of standardized test scores to correlate class rank, starting with admissions to the fall 2026 semester, to prevent the influence of outliers in the traditionally schooled comparison group,” the University of Texas at Austin reported in its student newspaper.

Nehring has homeschooled for nine years, with her children ranging in age from 16 to 1.

Homeschooling has helped with her family’s frequent moves because of her husband’s job, Nehring says, adding, “We’ve just fallen in love with the lifestyle.”