Mennonites don't vote

Some people are wondering why this happened..

This is an issue for many home school groups as well. The cost to renovate a church building up to the standards of a school out weigh the benefit they might get from the limited use they need. The fire standard for a school is much higher then it is for a church or assembly hall.

Some home schoolers are also being hassled by local fire inspectors. I had e mail from one person who had a fire inspector show up at her home (Where she home schooled her three children.) The inspector wanted to inspect her house to see if it met the fire code of a school (sprinklers etc.). She refused to let him in and after a discussion he relented because she had three kids and not five. If it had been five then she would have had to meet the standards of a school. I talked with some home school leaders and found this is not an isolated incident.

I drafted some legislation that said a building that is occasionally used for other purposes besides its original use will only have to meet the fire codes of its main purpose. If its main purpose was a church, it had to meet the codes of a church. If its main purpose was a house, it had to meet the fire codes of a house.

We went round and round with the state and finally settled with mandating that the local fire marshals have to follow the state fire codes for schools. It died in calendar committee with the argument that we need to give locals the ability to regulate as they see fit.

Maybe next year. But this is not the first attack on the home school community this year. It is starting to get national attention on how bad we treat our home school students and grads.