While the publicly available details within the witness list were limited, the coordinated submissions revealed detailed networks of individuals in the Homeschool community. This allowed us to positively identify nine registered sex offenders who committed felonies against minors.

Within the bill were several much needed protections homeschooled children are not entitled to under the current law—one of which aimed to prohibit homeschooling in the homes of registered sex offenders. We reached out to all of the offenders with a request for comment and to ask why they opposed the bill.

Out of the nine identified subjects, we left five messages without a response. Three of the subjects answered and positively identified themselves, but hung up soon after. In the end, only one registered sex offender agreed to speak about their opposition to Illinois’ now-stalled Homeschool Act: HB 2827. Below is our conversation, edited for clarity.

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Hi, this is Tony with SBR Sentinel, am I speaking with [Redacted]?

Yes.

Hey [Redacted], like I said, my name is Tony. I’m researching witness participation in Illinois’ homeschool legislation. I’m calling to ask about your witness slips you filed in the spring in opposition to HB 2827. Do you have two minutes?

Yes.

Thank you, I appreciate it. Can you confirm which amendments you submitted witness slips for?

It was the ones against the homeschooling, maybe a few months ago.

And that was for the original bill and the amendments as well?

Yeah.

Excellent, thank you. And real quick, what was in the bill that motivated you to testify against it?

Um, well, I don’t have it in front of me. Are you able to see my comments on that, or did I leave any comments on that?

No, I can’t see any comments.

I kind of forget about what the bill is about in general, but I’ve been homeschooled in Illinois all the way K-12 when I was younger. I went to college, graduated summa cum laude, and went on to get a master’s degree and a doctorate. Homeschooling has been great for me. I homeschooled all of my children. My oldest is starting his first year of college this year. And things go very well when we don’t have government interference with it. I think it’s the parent’s right and responsibility to educate the children. And I live with my children, and I don’t want a whole lot of government interference with that.

And do you participate in any homeschool groups or organizations within the state or nationally?

Yes, we’re lifetime members of the Home School Legal Defense Association.

Okay. So, our story revolves around the section of the bill regarding the prohibition of homeschooling for children in the homes of registered sex offenders. Is there anyone in your household that is on the Illinois Sex Offender Registry currently?

Yes. That would be me.

I appreciate your candor; do you have any additional context that you’d like to provide to that?

Sure. I committed and was convicted of a sex offense. It was not related to my children. Back about a decade ago, I went to prison, did my time. I’ve gotten out, and the law currently prevents sex offenders from residing with their minor children if their children were the victims in this situation, if not. So there’s already provisions in place that would prevent a sex offender from even living with his own children or victims. But they’re unrelated to this circumstance. And, you know, if they’re living with me, the fact that we’re homeschooling them, it really doesn’t make any difference as far as risk to the children. Yeah, I don’t think it’s a necessary law. If we need laws to prevent contact or unsupervised contact with sex offenders, then those are actually already in place. They shouldn’t be living with the sex offender if there’s risk to the children. But if they’re in a situation where the law allows it and has determined that there is not that risk to the children, then the fact that they’re homeschooling doesn’t make any difference to that. It really shouldn’t be a homeschooling issue at all.

Right. That makes sense. And do you see any conflict between your conviction and testifying against this particular bill?

No, that’s why I feel like I have some insight into the situation that most people don’t. I’ve obviously been in the situation, and I’ve talked with other people. I’ve gone to sex offender therapy classes and I’ve talked with other sex offenders and I know the current laws adequately protect the children of sex offenders without making it a homeschooling issue

And in these conversations that you’ve had with others, the consensus is that there’s no danger or issue with the children in the household.

Well, the danger would be whether they’re living with them or not, rather than whether they’re homeschooling them or not. I mean, does that make sense? The fact that they’re spending a few extra hours there each day during school hours when the sex offender is likely at work anyway, like me. Yeah, their mom homeschools them. I’m with them in the evenings whether I homeschool them or not. So the only reason they’re going for this, and I can see why they do it, is if there was abuse happening, the teacher might be somebody who might detect it, whereas if they’re homeschooled, that may or may not be the case. But I think it really complicates issues, and I don’t feel like that reasoning justifies the extreme hardship it would put on my family if we weren’t allowed to homeschool.

Right, that makes sense. Well, I appreciate your time. If you have anything else or anything comes to mind, you can reach me at this number. But that was all the questions that I had.

Okay. I appreciate you calling and probably a little bit of a unique perspective on it—there’s not a whole lot of scenarios like this I’m sure—but yeah glad to help out

The subject currently resides in Illinois. He served two years in prison and ten years of probation for forcible sexual abuse of a seven-year-old.∎

Earlier this year, the Illinois legislature introduced the Homeschool Act HB 2827. To address the state’s virtually non-existent requirements to homeschool, the bill would have codified the same guarantees afforded children educated in the public system—such as graduating with educational records and being taught by someone with a minimum of a high school education. The bill stalled and never received a vote on the House floor, succumbing to the Homeschool movement’s well-practiced pressure campaigns against any homeschool legislation. In celebration of its defeat, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) held events across the state in partnership with Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE) who worked to kill the bill.

Curious what those celebrating the defeat thought of the bill, I attended the last event in mid-June to speak with the participants. When I arrived, an unattended folding table with a clipboard awaited us while children played in the grass nearby. I began to mingle with the parents and spoke to the few vendors set up along the pavilion’s edge. Throughout the afternoon, the hosts, vendors, and adult attendees all expressed a shared belief in the freedom homeschooling afforded them, while continually warning that it was about to be taken away.

Speaking with a woman running a booth for a local co-op, she expressed concern over curriculum restrictions for homeschoolers and losing the ability to provide religious instruction. When I confirmed the bill did not impose restrictions or requirements on curriculum and religious instruction, she nevertheless felt any oversight would inevitably lead to this in the future: "Once they get it passed then they have the right to do whatever they want and continue to encroach on the homeschooling moms—or families!—decision making power on the curriculum and how they want to homeschool and all of that." The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) representative I spoke with next felt the same way, agreeing that it was Illinois' lax laws that protected against that encroachment: “The state of Illinois is pretty free when it comes to homeschooling … there is no real registration process. You don't have to let the schools know that you're homeschooling. And with that comes a lot of benefits … and so you don't want to be able to lose that.” I personally felt the benefits of no record requirements in another state, as I applied to colleges and jobs with only a Google Doc transcript as proof of completing high school.

Like the children playing just out of view, the homeschool alumni supporting the bill seemed to exist in the background. The attendees engaged in a ritualistic display of animosity towards the bill’s sponsor, Terra Costa Howard, and stated she and other supporters of the bill (homeschool alumni) were using the deaths of homeschooled children to enact draconian penalties targeting homeschoolers. Per one of the co-op vendors, "I think before they hadn't had any situations like that to use, so I guess they figured they got the opportunity.” I was unsure of which of the seven known deaths she was referring to.

Others were angry that homeschoolers' voices were unheard: “if you want a homeschool bill, then put some homeschoolers in the legislative process and write it with them." Whether they were unaware the bill was co-written by an organization founded and run by homeschool graduates, or simply did not consider them homeschoolers was unclear. This was echoed in a later conversation with AFP’s emcee of the event and homeschool graduate Grace Lattz, who took issue with the sponsor’s unwillingness to have a cordial dialogue and come to a mutually satisfying bill for all parties (Costa Howard actually removed the ban on sex-offenders from homeschooling at the request of opposition).

After speaking with as many guests as possible, the event ended with speeches from the figures and groups that were at the forefront opposing the bill. As much as this was a celebration, the speakers reiterated the need to "keep everyone engaged and in a holding stance, ready to get back in the fight." Chris Butler, an HSLDA affiliate and failed Democrat candidate, introduced a surprise guest who had not attended the prior events. After a mealy mouthed disclaimer that this is not him telling people to vote for a certain party and does not reflect the views of the hosts, he said to rounds of applause: “there is a legislator … who is going to attack homeschooling, and the state … will be better off if that legislator is not in Springfield next session.”

Butler then handed the microphone to Stephanie Trussell, the 2022 Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor, and she announced her campaign for the 42nd district: “I just want to assure all you homeschoolers that help is on the way. Terra Costa Howard is going to meet her match.” Trussell has never held office, but became the host of a conservative talk radio show for seven years through winning a contest. She told the crowd her bid was a result of a call from Dan Patlack, the president of conservative think-tank Illinois Policy Institute, asking her to run against Terra Costa Howard in the 42nd. Trussell left the Democratic party in 1993 but has never endorsed homeschooling publicly prior to HB 2827.1 In fact, prior to this year, her comments suggest she viewed homeschooling as unserious. In a 2023 Facebook video, she called Homeschoolers “elitist” and not a viable option to “get those kids out of the public schools.”

After lamenting the county’s under performing schools (in reality some of the highest performing districts in the country), Trussell asked the crowd for their support to “flip the 42nd” and closed the event with a promise: “We’re gonna take down Terra Costa Howard.” With each speaker stressing which regulations would not be tolerated, I approached Grace Lattz afterwards to ask what homeschool oversight would be acceptable. She was unable to answer repeat requests for an example, instead deflecting with statements such as “everyone here loves their kids,” which I reminded her was never claimed otherwise. By the time I left, no one had been able to accurately describe what was in the bill they were opposing in the first place, much less give a clear vision of how to hold abuse through homeschooling accountable.

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All of these newfound friends of homeschooling are hoping to transform this opposition into material political gains. They are likely to be disappointed. News coverage uncritically repeated the movement’s touted witness count without noting the non in-state submissions, the rampant duplicate filings—one woman submitted her name over 70 times—and the names of non-voting minors Illinois Homeschoolers urged followers to submit.2 It helped to prop up an event that was strangely hollow, all of its disjointed facets held together by an unprepared coalition of opportunists. AFP, unprepared to share a presence with a homeschooler on the receiving end of the freedom being celebrated, stated their organization was mostly interested in property taxes—implicating their incentive to withhold as many children from a public education as possible. Arriving just before the event ended and apologizing for still being in her work uniform, Stephanie Trussell stated she had only heard about 2827 ten minutes before deciding to run a campaign centered around it. It is an extension of the issues endemic to the Homeschooling movement itself, where fear and outrage against exaggerated threats are manufactured to further their own interests with little regard for the people they claim to represent.∎

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Pivot table of HB 2827 witness slips

Hb2827 Witness Slips

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It's Homeschool convention season. To kick it off this year, I decided to attend Massachusetts’ 2025 convention this past April. My trip was partly to see what Homeschooling looks like in its least popular state, but I mostly wanted to see someone from back home. Scheduled to speak at the 35th Annual MASSHope Convention was a former Homeschool leader from my home in Virginia. After allegations of grooming a minor in 2016, he disappeared from the movement he helped build. I’d never been to Massachusetts, so I figured “what the hell” and bought a plane ticket and convention pass.

As I wrote in an essay last week, the conference itself was a miserable time. I attended workshops by Homeschooling’s biggest creeps like the weekend’s keynote speaker, Heidi St. John (“Children have been given to you like arrows”). Mixing in with the attendees, I browsed the exhibit hall and vendor booths, where a woman from Turning Point USA told me about her friend arrested for harassing a transgender woman at a public restroom (“That’s a badge of honor. That’s what we need”). But I ended the convention by interviewing the former Home Educators Association of Virginia (HEAV) board member accused of grooming a minor, Rick Boyer.

Boyer was one of Homeschooling’s pioneers, but he virtually disappeared from the movement in 2016. In April that year, a woman posted on her website that as a minor, Boyer had made sexual advances in an attempt to groom her. He subsequently disappeared from the HEAV website a few months later, and the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) cut ties with him. Boyer then attempted to sue the woman in a series of lawsuits that lasted nearly eight years.

I ended up interviewing him right as the convention was nearing its close. After buttering him up for a few minutes about his glory days, I began to ask him why he stopped getting invitations to speak at Homeschool conventions. His body began to erupt in a series of what felt like micro-seizures as I pressed him to acknowledge any of his past. Even after realizing the nature of the interview, he never confirmed the allegations from 2016, ending in a tense standoff. As he made his exit, Boyer told me “No hard feelings” and offered to shake my hand. I found the gesture significant, as a few minutes prior he described attacks on Homeschool figures as the work of the Devil.

Rick, incapable of self-reflection, is in practice a microcosm of the institution at large. HSLDA may have severed ties with Rick a decade ago, but that “line in the sand” wasn’t an impediment for their board member to share the top bill with him this weekend. This was also not his first convention back, as he headlined fellow Homeschool Alliance organizations North Dakota Homeschool Association (NDHSA) in 2024 as well as Oregon Christian Home Education Association Network (OCEANetwork) in 2023. He exists in a liminal world. Never formally removed, and never formally brought back in.

But my visit and interview have only led me to find more questions. In his first defamation suit that included Ryan Stollar and Homeschoolers Anonymous, he says that HSLDA rescinded their invite to their leadership conference after the April 2016 allegations. The Wayback Machine says otherwise; Boyer was removed from their speakers list between March 30, 2015 and July 2015. A full year before the allegations were published. Why that relationship was severed a year before Boyer claims is not an answer that will be given willingly.

As I concluded in my essay, the trip was notable for the way in which a dingy event held between a CVS and Yankee Liquor in a state ranked 50 out of 50 in homeschool enrollment is given legitimacy by a national network. The developed version of Homeschooling seen elsewhere in the U.S. is only able to come about through a local colony cultivating the soil for an institution to take root. An institution that exists to avoid confrontation with the reality of the world around it must in turn create fictions of itself. The manufactured realities only grow bolder as it avoids confrontation with its own nature.∎

Home Is Where The Hatred Is

I Went to the 2025 Massachusetts Homeschool Convention and Interviewed a Fucking Creep

It took sixteen minutes to get to my gate starting from the parking garage—seven minutes more than usual for RIC. I lost my driver’s license two days before, and spent the morning of my flight collecting every other ID and form with my name on it. The TSA agent at the security bridge waves a supervisor over, who then thumbs through my half-inch thick en…

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10 months ago · 26 likes · 1 comment · Tony Delvecchio

I reached out for comment to MASSHope, NDHSA, OCEANetwork, ACHEL, and HSLDA. MASSHope returned only a read receipt. NDHSA, OCEANetwork, ACHEL, and HSLDA did not respond for comment.

Throughout the 2000s, the Home School Legal Defense Association made multiple guest appearances on Alex Jones’ notorious radio show, InfoWars. That radio show and all of its assets are currently in the process of being sold off and auctioned to pay damages awarded to the parents of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. Jones and InfoWars manufactured and promoted conspiracies about the murdered children for years, resulting in harassment campaigns against the parents of those murdered.

The InfoWars guest list of over two decades includes some of the worst humanity has to offer. Beyond guests that lied about Sandy Hook parents, the show has hosted everything from health guru scam artists, to white supremacists, holocaust deniers, and groyper Nazis. Today, HSLDA can officially be added to that list, moving them out of hiding and placing them in their rightful place in the public record.

Alex Jones has been telling listeners to homeschool their children since the show’s inception in the late 1990s, often describing schools with a now common sentiment of “indoctrination factories” where children are asked to spy on their parents. Jones’ hot-tempered conspiratorial rants about Child Protective Services and “government training facilities” made him an influential mouthpiece in the Homeschooling movement. Jones often recommended callers and listeners to become members of the HSLDA in addition to taking their kids out of schools.

I reached out multiple times to the HSLDA for comment. Over email, I contacted both their designated media inquiries inbox as well as president of the organization Jim Mason, as he represented the HSLDA as a guest in 2007. I also stopped by their booth at the South Carolina Great Homeschool Convention and asked to have my information passed along. Finally, I reached out to Michael Farris, former president and founder. The only response was from Farris, who said he “has no knowledge” of HSLDA’s relationship with InfoWars.

What are the Details?

• There are four available episodes where the HSLDA is a featured guest.

• HSLDA features across a five year period from 2002 to 2007.

• Jim Mason, Senior Legal Counsel for HSLDA at the time, features on the last known appearance in 2007.

• Chris Klicka is the most regular representative, featuring on three of the four known episodes from 2002 to 2003.

• Klicka was Senior Counsel for HSLDA in that time period, and passed away in 2009.

• There is at least one additional appearance, if not more. Jones references a previous guest appearance in the first 2002 episode.

What’s in the Episodes?

Well, it’s Alex Jones. Chris Klicka, one of HSLDA’s most insane attorneys, gets along with Jones swimmingly. They have a natural chemistry and don’t find much to disagree over. The two talk about Child Protective Services stealing children to give to the homosexuals, and at one point Klicka gives a personal anecdote about trying to cast a demon out of a social worker. That the two find common ground on the regular demonization of CPS is fitting, considering both have a record of defending child abusers.

Around the same time of the last episode appearance, Jones had a follower of child predator Bill Gothard on his show. Jones told the guest his kids were being taken by the state “because you homeschool,” and “children [are] being kidnapped by CPS for rape rooms.” The guest was arrested for stalking his kids two years later. This happened concurrently as the HSLDA was representing a couple who pulled their mentally challenged son out of public school. Those parents would later lock that disabled child in a cage with his own feces.

Current HSLDA president Jim Mason, one of HSLDA’s most sane attorneys, seems uncomfortable by Jones’ antics and flair (lying). Mason’s October 2007 appearance is possibly the last, as the organization starts to pivot to having a less (publicly) radical message around this time.

We have collected the episodes, edited for commercial breaks, and placed them in one collection available on YouTube here*. An audio file of all episodes and a PDF file containing the transcription can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.

*Well I saw that coming. YouTube (rightfully) has a low tolerance for Alex Jones content. I have uploaded them here directly—for however long that lasts.

Hslda Infowars Compilation Transcription

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Thank you to Erlend at fight.fudgie.org and his library of Alex Jones material for making these discoveries possible.