by Qinglong Diep
LOWELL – School Committee member Fred Bahou withdrew his homeschool outreach initiative motion after parents of homeschooled children raised legal and resource concerns.
Bahou’s motion, if passed, would have directed one or more of the school district’s departments to call parents that took their child out of the school district and homeschool them this summer to check on their progress and inform them of district resources and benefits in an effort to encourage them to re-enroll in the school district.
Instead, the proposed policy written by Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Oneida Fox Roye, was accepted as a report of progress, meaning the committee acknowledged the document but did not vote to offer amendments to the proposed policy or reject the proposed changes.
Five homeschooling parents uniformly opposed both items while addressing the committee during public comment.
Several cited Care and Protection of Charles, the 1987 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision defining the limits of school district oversight of homeschooling. They argued that proposed changes requiring Family Resource Center registration, mandatory curriculum framework alignment, and restricted submission windows all exceeded what the law permits.
Erin Pirrotta, a parent of both Lowell Public School students and a homeschooled child, raised fiscal concerns.
With 151 homeschooling families representing approximately 250 children in the district, she estimated that 15-minute calls to each family would consume roughly 38 staff hours at a time when the central office was already short-staffed due to budget cuts.
“I ask the committee to vote no on motion 7.2 because I really just don’t think it’s an effective use of our limited resources,” Pirrotta said.
The outreach initiative motion stemmed from inquiries Bahou began in October of 2025, when he made a motion to seek data on homeschooling approvals from a specific time period. The response in November led the committee member to further ask for the numbers to be broken down by grade level from the specific time period.
A supplemental report provided to the committee in early March of 2026 provided a grade-level breakdown of homeschooled students. Bahou learned no submission cutoff existed and requested a draft policy incorporating one. That request produced the revised policy presented Wednesday.
Bahou, who acknowledged that he had once considered homeschooling his children along with his wife, said the surge in applications — from 182 students as of December 31 to 211 by March 13 — had prompted his concern and that intimidation was never his intent.
Mayor Erik Gitschier, who chairs the committee, said the outreach motion read more as a marketing effort for the district than genuine support for homeschooling families.
“Parents who make those decisions, make decisions that are in the best interest of their children,” Gitschier said. “And there are laws in place that support that right.”
Committee member Connie Martin, while opposing the outreach motion, stopped short of rejecting the policy revisions outright.
She asked the administration to clarify the registration process and requested that the submission window restrictions be reconsidered, suggesting families should be able to apply at any point in the year with the same documentation requirements applying regardless of timing.
