Rally Day 2009! Making state government come to life!
Rally Day event March 24 gives chance for students to converse with legislators
As we come to this milestone in the history of THEA, our 25th anniversary of working together with and for Tennessee’s home educating families, we ask you to join with us for our Capitol Hill Rally & Reception Day on Tuesday, March 24th to celebrate what God has done!
THEA was birthed in the legal and legislative battles of the mid-1980’s, and so on Rally Day we will be thanking God for His protection these past 25 years giving us freedom to grow as home educating families, to raise and educate our children with God-given and God-protected freedom. As home schooling families, we have together built a community with many activities for our children to learn and grow, we have reached out to support each other as we walked this “road less traveled”. We’ve had the privilege to participate in the growth of, in the growing up of homeschooling, in all its unique and myriad activities, within our state and across our nation.
On Rally Day 2009, we will celebrate the building of a strong foundation supporting thousands of Tennessee home educating families, as we look ahead to and pray for God’s blessings in the next 25 years.
What exactly is THEA?
Founded in January 1984, as the modern homeschooling movement began, the Tennessee Home Education Association, THEA, like all of the state homeschool organizations across America, was founded by home educating parents to protect our right to determine our children’s education.
As the modern homeschooling movement burst on the American scene 25 + years ago, a tremendous battle for the control of education and the authority of parents to homeschool erupted in every state across America. As in the others, in Tennessee the battle for homeschool freedom was on two fronts: The state legislature and the courtroom.
Looking back: the battle fought in Tennessee courts
In the early to mid-1980’s, five homeschooling families in Tennessee were charged with truancy with the parents facing the threat of jail time. Two sets of parents spent time incarcerated in Tennessee jails for their homeschooling. Two of these homeschooling families were charged with abuse and neglect, which in Tennessee law can be tied to the truancy charge. With the abuse and neglect conviction, children can be taken from their parents and placed in foster care.
One of our families in Hamilton County charged with truancy, abuse and neglect sent their children across the state line to Georgia to hide them from the state. One of these families, as they fought for their parental rights in the Tennessee courts, had to sell their home to pay their attorney fees. Think about the fear of losing your children or losing your home in your battle to guard your freedom to homeschool? These families paid the price of our freedom.
The battle fought in the Legislature
With the ruling of two judges involved in these court cases, the legal battle moved from the courtroom to the General Assembly. The judges ruled that the Tennessee compulsory attendance statute, the law regulating all schooling in Tennessee, was “unconstitutionally vague” because it did not clearly define what constituted a private school. Home educators were quite logically asserting that their homeschools were private schools. The judges’ rulings mandated that our state legislature rewrite the compulsory attendance statue to clearly define private schools.
Homeschoolers knew this was our God-given opportunity to impact our state lawmakers to include home education in our state law and clearly delineate the rights of parents to home school.
The battle was intense. While we still had no homeschool law in Tennessee, brave families testified before our Senate Education Committee, explaining how they educated their children, showing them their curriculum, their daily schedules, even test results. We called our legislators, wrote them and traveled to the Capitol numerous times to meet individually with them.
It was intense.
The Tennessee Department of Education and Tennessee Education Association (the teacher’s union) did not want Tennessee law to give parents this freedom, so they worked very hard against us, lobbying for as much regulation of home schools by the TN Department of Education as possible.
Tennessee’s current home school law passed in spring of 1985. While we know that it is not the most lenient home school law in America, we know and can be thankful that in Tennessee, we have freedom to home school within boundaries that are not too burdensome or restrictive. When we are truly home educating, we can do so without prosecution, without charges of truancy, threat of jail or loss of our children to the state.
THEA Capitol rally and reception day
Rally Day was born in March 1985. Even before the home education law passed our state legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Lamar Alexander in May 1985, THEA hosted our first Rally Day at the Tennessee state Capitol. Our purpose was to inform our legislators of just what we were about in our homeschooling.
Claiborne said, “Let’s bring the good report of home education to them. Let’s rally Tennessee’s home school families to the Capitol to meet our legislators, to showcase our children’s school work, science projects, art work, and extracurricular activities.” Our enemies had launched many rumors about us, making false claims that not only were we not qualified to teach our own children, but many of us we were not even attempting to teach our children — that we only kept them home to send them to work in full-time jobs. Since this is truancy and not what we are about, we determined to “bring the good report” of what we were about.
THEA reserved the cafeteria in the Legislative Plaza for an evening presentation about home education. Families, with some trepidation as our law still did not allow home education, came from across the state to display their curriculum, their schoolwork, their science and 4-H exhibits, artwork and school projects. Support groups provided the food, while homeschooled young ladies served our legislators home-made treats at a reception.
Families met their legislators and explained to them their unique style of education.
Rally planned for Tuesday, March 24
Every year since, THEA has hosted a Day on Capitol Hill for the very same purpose, to inform our legislators of the benefits of home education, to “bring the good report of home education” to them. Now we rent the War Memorial Auditorium, or WMA, and gather from all across Tennessee to celebrate homeschooling.
This year, we’ll gather on Tuesday, March 24, in the WMA on Capitol Hill for our program which begins at 8:45 a.m. and concludes at 11 a.m. Together we will thank God for preserving our homeschooling freedom these 25 years and allowing us to grow as families and as a movement, as a community.
THEA is made up of seven chapters across Tennessee with tremendous support offered in each chapter, including Web sites, chat lists, beginning homeschool help, monthly newsletters, annual curriculum fairs of both new and used materials, support groups, science and academic fairs, spelling and geography bees co-ops, tutorials, sports teams, mock trial teams, speech and debate clubs and competitions, beautiful graduation ceremonies — in other words, support of every kind. On Rally Day, homeschool families will come from every chapter, from all across Tennessee to join together for this 25th anniversary celebration.
During our Rally Day program on the stage of the War Memorial Auditorium, the THEA Honor Band with homeschooled student musicians from across the state will again wow us with their amazing talent and fabulous performance. Legislators will be honored. outstanding students, two from each of the THEA chapters, will be congratulated. Speakers will address us, including the Junior and Senior first place winners of the Sara Lee Harris /Apologetics Oratory Contest (see more about this below).
Speech & debate highlighted
Once again Rally Day will highlight two speech and debate activities sponsored by the Christian Communicators of Tennessee, CCT, THEA’s sister organization. See: http://www.cctennessee.org/ and http://www.tnhea.org/ for more information.
Volunteer to help?
We need You! If you wish to help in some way to make this Day effective and powerful, please call me, Lana Thornton, at 615-293-7140. If I can’t take your call, please leave me a message with your phone number and I’ll be sure to get back to you!
Join with THEA as we celebrate 25 years of working together to protect and promote home education and as we Rally together at our state Capitol to bring the good report of home education to our lawmakers. Together we will be bringing a strong message to those who make our laws that homeschooling is thriving in Tennessee, that the rights of parents must be protected and guaranteed by our state laws and we are here to hold our lawmakers accountable!
Rally Day To-do List
Visits with legislators
One of the most important parts of our Rally Day is you — our homeschool families — scheduling appointments with your state senator and state representative.
We are still about “bringing the good report of home education to them.” Your personal visit with your lawmakers is the best, most effective way to do this.
Please do this.
Call ahead, call now and make a 10- 15 minute appointment with your two legislators.
Dads and moms, take your children. Tell the legislators that you wish to meet them as you’ll be on Capitol Hill for Rally Day. Plan to bring them a letter from your children, thanking them for their service to our state.
Take your camera and have a picture made with them. They are your representatives. They want to know you, their constituents. Know that you represent homeschoolers, knowing that you are continuing to protect our freedoms to homeschool in Tennessee.
Here’s a “Find Your Legislator” link; use your voter registration card to check your district number. Go to this link:
Cookie delivery
The West Tennessee Home Education Association, WTHEA, the chapter of THEA between Memphis and Nashville, has for over a decade prepared 180 dozen cookies and sweet treats in our signature red, white and blue gift bags with the sticker “A Treat from Home” for you and your family to take to the staff of your lawmakers. Each bag will also have the four-color Rally Day program to be given to your lawmakers to read
about our Rally and to see the pictures and bullet point bios of the outstanding students from their part of the state. We need you to take these with you to the offices of your legislators.Plan to take these when you visit them for your appointments. Pick them up at the COOKIE tables on the first floor level of the Legislative Plaza (the lowest level within their office complex) before you go to your appointments.
Even if you do not make an appointment, with your legislators, you can deliver cookies — it’s fun — the staff watches for our cookie gift bags on Rally Day! Dads and moms, bring your children, visit your legislators, represent Tennessee home educators and count this a great civics lesson for your children.
Set up on display tables
Like almost all groups which lobby our state lawmakers, we reserve the hallway space along the walls in the Legislative Plaza (the lowest level within their office complex) for you to bring your student’s science projects, art work, sports and mock trial trophies, 4-H exhibits, support group tri-folds. All of these give a visual presentation to our lawmakers of the vibrancy and accomplishments and socialization of home educators — they bring the good report of home education. Contact Suzanne Myhre if you wish to have space on a display table at:
Legislator luncheon
THEA serves all our legislators and their staff a luncheon on Rally Day. About 500 people go through our reception line, manned by homeschool teens serving them a Tennessee lunch of bar-b-que, baked beans, potato salad, grasshopper bars (made by Rutherford County home school moms and daughters) and tea.
While our legislators and their staffers go through the reception line, our student musicians entertain them with beautiful music. We have featured harp music, flutes, guitar, and string players in large groups, solos, trios and quartets. All of these home educators are “bringing the good report of home education” as we join together to present our unique educational endeavors to our legislators.
Capitol Hill Area Map
Download and print this map of the Capitol Area.