Illinois Government Overreach Targeted Homeschool Families—Parents Fought Back

And unfortunately we're going to have harms and terrible things that are going to happen in homes no matter what education situation students are in. But when the state, and I think that's one of the stories that was brought to the highlight of the argument and was trying to point blame on home-schoolers, but in fact DCFS had already been called into that instance and they dropped the ball. And so what a lot of homeschoolers were saying is so the state is already failing children in one area instead of fixing math and putting funds towards that and staffing in that and reducing caseload there. They're adding to expanding government and adding expense and adding cost of it just wasn't making math sense. It just wasn't adding up. And by and large homeschoolers are doing really well with standardized testing. Americans are capable of achieving extraordinary things when they have the freedom and opportunity to do so. This is American Potential. One of the great things about homeschooling is that you can take anything that happens in everyday life and turn it into a school lesson. For example, in my home state of Illinois there was a government idea that sounded simple until you read it. Lawmakers pitched a bill that would simply make homeschooling families register with the state. Harmless, right? Well, here's the kicker. If you didn't register, you could end up facing a fine or even jail time. Yeah, jail for not filing one more government form. And look, if you've got a family, you already know how chaotic life gets, particularly if you're homeschooling. You're just going to work, you know, kid schedules, your schedule, church schedules, appointments, commitments. Half the time you're just trying to keep your head above water. And in the middle of all that, the state wants to toss another thing on the pile and hope you don't forget it. So today we're digging into this Illinois bill, what it would have meant for homeschool families and why parents pushed back in a big way. I want to welcome to the podcast Kristi and Matt Black, who are one of the homeschooling families who got involved to stop the bad bill. Kristi and Matt, how are you? Doing well. How about yourself? Well, thanks so much for joining us. Hi, David. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Well, look, I feel like, you know, your folks who battled this bad legislation to succeed, you know, to help stop it. And, you know, myself, as I said in the intro, I mean, I'm an Illinois homeschooling dad. I have been for a better part of 20 over 20 years. And I believe really fundamentally in the value of homeschooling and that it, and, you know, weird way, I mean, most people wouldn't notice this. I mean, Illinois is not a great place when it comes to taxes or regulation or freedom or anything. And yet when it comes to homeschooling, it's one of the freer places. And I don't think people understand that. So I think that, you know, we really, as an entire community, really were sounding the alarm of the threat of this pernicious regulation, I really think. So but before we get all that, I kind of wanted to hear a little bit about you guys. I mean, tell me about your family, where you live, and then eventually how did you get involved and decide to homeschool? Right. Yeah. So we are, again, Matt and Kristi Black, and we have four kids, two girls, two boys, and we've been teaching now from 18 years up to 27 years age. So we have gone the journey of the homeschooling, a kind of on the retired aspect of that, per say, at this point in time, with our youngest just graduating from homeschooling back this past year. So but, you know, we're down in the southern Illinois area, just outside of St. Louis, about 10, 15 miles outside of St. Louis. So we got involved in homeschooling back when our oldest daughter was in about third grade. We had gone through a program or potential program at our church where we were going to start a university school model situation, and we were on part of the planning committee for that and going through it and just trying to figure out something maybe a little bit more different from the typical school environment. We had been homeschooling, our two daughters had been in private Christian school at that point in time, and we were going through this process with a bunch of other families and just looking at seeing if we could get this started. And our church was putting us together and we had a set number of families we needed to be participating in the university school model to make it happen, where it wasn't going to be a financial burden on the church. And that was a pretty lengthy process and as we walked through it, we were just short of the numbers it was going to take to start that school. And so we had been looking at it and you know, what can we do as a family to better educate our children in a way that met up with our convictions and time spent with our kids and stuff. And there was about 10 other families within the church at that point in time that when the university school model didn't happen, we all decided, hey, you know, we can do this homeschooling thing. And so we went through those early processes of doing that, pulling our hair out some days, tears, crying, did we make the right choices, all that kind of stuff. And you know, 20 years later, here we sit, one of the best decisions that I think we made. One of our goals was to teach our kids to love learning. And I would have said over the, you know, as we were mirroring our first graduate, graduating, I would have felt I felt like a failure in that regard. But our kids have taught us since then that they truly have learned to love learning. And so that was just one of our goals that we, I thought, oh, if my kids could love learning, that would be so different than my experience in public school. I thought maybe I could fix this. Now I couldn't fix it for them, but praise God, they do love learning. And we look back and we're so grateful that we have opportunity to homeschool our kids. So Christy, did you do most of the homeschooling like day in and day out? Or how did you guys approach that? Sure. Yeah, I did most of the teaching. And we had, when we were in the process of looking into the university model school, we had both been on the committee to look at curriculum. So we kind of already had looked into that together and selected it. And then I implemented most of the teaching. And we had the privilege that Matt worked from home. And so we, we had dad's intervention whenever we needed it. And that is a blessing. And so if I needed to run an errand, I was, I was free to do that. It's kind of a blessing that not all homeschool families get and homeschool moms have that extra weight on them. But we, we had a little bit of a different scenario and it worked really well for our family. We loved being able to be home together and do education like that. But we had a very great co-op. We also participated in different learning, you know, experiences in different ways throughout the years. Yeah, I think that that's one of the things that people haven't quite always realized about homeschooling is like, there's a lot of different shapes and sizes and forms that it takes. And, you know, we did it originally more of a traditional way where it's like the kids are home with mom learning. But as, as we kind of went on, I, the, the benefit of my wife was homeschooled back in the eighties, you know, when it was really weird. And she had a deep knowledge of it and just a good feel. She knew like, Hey, my kids won't be illiterate even if it doesn't seem like right now it's, you know, we're not sure how it's working and all that and that kind of thing. So, but I, the thing that struck me, I came from a public school background and my parents were involved in public schools professionally. And I've always said, I think my mom still is surprised that my kids can read. But, you know, I really think that the thing that I really, it really made me kind of embrace it was you really can push into the, the likes and like the desires, like the aptitudes that kids see like when you, when they get interested in something, they can deep dive into it and you as a parent can kind of help guide them and make sure that they're still learning the other stuff too. But like you can really sparks that love of learning and that imagination. And I just think that that's, that's kind of invaluable. And I, you know, we, I've found it to be such a great, a really, yeah, a blessing like some that was great. Plus you're together a lot. It's just great to be with your family. Yeah. And that's one of the greatest joys of being a homeschool mom is that you get to see those light bulb moments when your kids start to develop into their personality and the way that God has made them. And that is, I wouldn't trade that for the world now in the hindsight, I got to be in those moments and seeing where they were tapping in and really help them lean into the resources. And so, you know, that would help them to grow in the, in the ways that they were bent. So that's really incredible. Yeah. So you all got involved with something called team packed. We did. Yeah. Well, tell everybody what they're familiar. I, I will say I, when I was the Illinois State Director for American Suppressability, worked a bunch with team packed and it was just so fun. I loved seeing these, these kids and their enthusiasm and just their hunger to learn. It was, it was fabulous. So why don't you describe what team packed and what they do? Yeah. Well, I'm so glad that I get to meet you because I've heard your name a couple of times, but right now Matt and I are serving as the Illinois team packed state coordinators. And before me, Lori Gaines was our state coordinator. And so she has mentioned her several times and said, you know, how the relationship between AFP and team packed initially started in Illinois, Illinois, from what I understand from Lori is that you had reached out to Lori and had said, Hey, how can AFP support what team packed is doing in Illinois? And from there, Lori has had her son in law worked for AFP and then we have had different team packeders who have been sought out opportunities with AFP. And so Grace Latz is an incredible resource. She was invaluable during this whole HB2827 event. She just really became kind of a lifeline for me personally as I'm trying to help support other families in our area. So team packed is a leadership school that believes in the capacity of young people to lead and it really just trains them to understand their responsibilities as a citizen of God's kingdom, but as a citizen of their country and to be able to learn what their worldviews are and then to be able to act on those. Not that team packed doesn't teach them what to think, but teaches them how to think and to use those that education then to be active in their in their community. Yeah, I remember being in one of the auditoriums in the state capital and when the team packed group was all there, it was, you know, had to be a hundred kids or something, maybe more. And we had some folks from the state government come in and talk and just I was so proud to see all these homeschooling kids because as a homeschool dad, I always want people to see how great like so many of the children who have been homeschooled are. And like as they become young adults, how great they are. And I was so proud of like the thoughtful questions that they asked. I mean, it was it was so thoughtful. They were some of them were challenging. You know, I think that some of the elected officials thought, oh, a bunch of high school kids are going to ask me some questions. No problem. And some of them were really challenging and well thought out. I thought I was like, yes, that because look at the homeschoolers tend to despite, you know, there's a lot of misnomers that people like to put out there like, oh, well, you know, you don't, you know, you can culture it well, or you know, people are awkward or that. Well, that depends what you value, first of all. So but second of all, like, you know, a lot of homeschool students, you know, are not limited to like their year or two above the above or below them in the grade. They're just they're used to interacting with all ages, including adults. And I think that in a situation like that, I was able to observe them be so much more interactive and, you know, really mature with these elected officials. Right. Well, and that brings up a good point that teen packed isn't exclusively for homeschoolers, but a lot of homeschoolers participate in teen packed because teen packed, by nature of it, being the introductory program as part of the local government, it is held during the legislative session. So it's held usually in most states sometime between January and May. And it's a week long event that is held in the capital of each state. And so by nature of that and the flexibility that homeschoolers have with their schedule, it affords them a good opportunity to be able to embrace that opportunity. Now we do in Illinois, we actually have a private school that participates in our Illinois two class and then, you know, homeschool or public schoolers come as they are able. You know, sometimes they might have to just ask for permission to come. And so it's much less common for students in a different education setting. And so it's a great way for students to be able to attend teen packed, but it's a great way for parents to be able to help their students learn about their civic duties and responsibilities and exercise those opportunities to. Teen packed really helps students frame questions well. And so they gain some of those skills and communication. And then they are also just afforded the opportunity to practice those things. And so they have a lot of people who are lobbyists when they're at the Capitol during the week, they interview legislators, they have regular meetings with them and they have to write letters to them beforehand. So they've done some research on some of the issues that the legislators have been working on. So they have a personal working knowledge so that they can be, you know, educated and informed when they go into those conversations, when they come to the Capitol during that week. So now, turning to HB 2027. So the big threat last year. It's a great or something. A real threat to homeschooling comes up in Illinois. Maybe you tell us a little bit about like what you thought, you know, what you thought was objectionable in the bill and how you think that would have impacted homeschool families. Yeah. So one of the primary concerns that I had with the bill was just the vague and open ended wording of the bill. And it left a lot up to each regional office of education, which would have been, you know, each school district could have been kind of varied the rules as they saw fit under the word, the wording in the bill was phrased. So that was especially alarming. There were some other things that were concerning and, you know, they could have tweaked wording to accommodate those concerns. But when you have open ended wording, there's just, you know, that leaves a huge red flag. And I mean, Matt can kind of talk to the his point of view, which I think is helpful for other people because maybe I had a locked in perspective, but Matt was kind of like more willing to kind of hear this out a little bit at the beginning. So I'll let him share that. Right. So, you know, it's one of those things where when it first clapped up and I'm like, so what what really is wrong with this? I, you know, I'm dug into it really to figure it out and and talking to other people I know throughout the country that homeschool and stuff, they're like, what do you mean? You don't have to register. You don't have to do anything. You just homeschool, like you said earlier, Illinois is one of the freest homeschool states out there. And so when I would bring that up, they're, they just had puzzled faces like they couldn't believe that we didn't have to register or we didn't have anything. So they were questioning it. So, so when I first started looking at it, and I'm like, so what would be wrong with me having to provide a name of my kid that we're homeschooling and stuff like that. And then as you start getting into it, it's just that slippery slope that presented itself there. And as Christ was saying that vagueness, a lot of it was there. So, hey, we put it in here this way now, but we can, you know, tweak this as we go down the road. And, you know, what we're saying now looks harmless, but then down the road, it could be, you know, as a superintendent or as a state, we want you to teach this and we want you to teach it this way. And if you don't, then there's going to be consequences to pay and stuff like that. So that's where it started concerning me a little bit more so than just, hey, providing my name to school district to let them know that I'm homeschooling my children. So, you know, as this involved, I mean, I think, yeah, especially the Democrats like to who were on the committee, they were the ones who were pushing this bill. There was, I should say, select Democrats were. And they just were like, what do you mean? This is common sensical. And but the reality is when you really looked at it, think of it from the perspective of a single mom in the West side of Chicago, a number of whom came down to lobby with us. You know, these are real people, but like all that they have going on, their alternatives is that they care enough to homeschool their child so they get the best education possible or they can send their kids to absolutely failing schools where they're subject to being recruited by gangs, they're picked on, they're unsafe, there's a lot of bullying, there's terrible schools. And those are their two options. And they're trying to do the hard work of homeschooling their kids. So if they had forgotten to send in their thing by, I think it was September 1st, their registration, they'd be subject to criminal truancy laws and prosecution that way. And then think about the cascading effect that has on that family. It's all bad. And then the arbitrariness, I think, would you write, Christy, about the vagueness that was included there. There was a lot of things that were just leapt up to the school superintendent and whether they wanted to prosecute somebody or whether they should, you know, should involve child and family services, which is a huge step. So just because somebody maybe didn't register their kid, all of a sudden they're subject to DCFS coming and investigating their family. And, you know, that just opens a whole can of worms. So I was just really, you know, we really thought that there's the other aspect was that they were, they actually originally included private schools. So theoretically, you could make a list of school, of kids and what religious school they attend. So here's the kids in the Jewish school, here's the kids in the Muslim school, here's the kid in the Catholic school, here's the kids in the evangelical school. It seems really un-American that we're keeping like that. We can kind of keep those lists about kids. And so I thought that there was, and I guess I would say the other part is, why should we trust the people who were pushing this bill? They were saying blatantly unfair, untrue things about homeschooling. They were trying to characterize homeschooling as almost dangerous. Why would we ever trust that they want our kids to be safe and educated the way that parents want them educated? They have a tractor that are showing that they want kids educated the way the state wants to educate kids. And that's not what we're here for. And that's why we have the Freedom of School. Yeah, right. And unfortunately, we're going to have harms and terrible things that are going to happen in homes, no matter what education situation students are in. But when the state, and I think that's one of the stories that was brought to the highlight of the argument and was trying to point blame on homeschoolers. But in fact, DCFS had already been called into that instance and they dropped the ball. And so what a lot of homeschoolers were saying is so the state is already failing children in one, you know, one area instead of fixing that and putting funds towards that and staffing in that and reducing caseload there. They're adding to expanding government and adding expense and adding cost. So it just wasn't making math sense. It just wasn't adding up. And by and large, homeschoolers are doing really well with, you know, with their standardized testing and they're doing well with supporting their communities, their active and engaged. And that's the, you know, the window that I get to see with Team Pack 2 is that we are seeing families who support needy in their community by giving and by donating and team actors are at the front lines of volunteering wherever they can. And so it's a it's a it's a benefit and a blessing to the communities that we have to be able to homeschool. One of the aspects of this bill that really, if you're in need of most is like there, they would make these claims that, you know, cite individual instances of maybe a really tragic event where a child died or was harmed and there are categorized as being homeschooled. When you dug into those, they really were so much disingenuous in most cases. And I mean, obviously, if you go to public school, it's much more dangerous than being homeschooled. It's just in the aggregate. But the reality was is like there were kids who were kicked out of multiple public schools who then were forced to be homeschooled. And those kids were in bad environments and ended up, you know, sometimes having bad things happen, but that that wasn't like the parent choosing to homeschool their child. So that yeah, that is a bad environment. Or there were situations where somebody was an abusive parent and they kept their kid out of school and were doing nothing and eventually, you know, some some some really tragic things happened. But those are not the people who are going to register their kids the way that this legislation wanted to. So the bad actors are still going to keep being the bad actors. And yet you're going to penalize and put criminal penalties on hard work and folks who are going to try to you're trying to get their kids the best education that they could possibly do. And I just thought it was so that's the word. I just thought it was really cynical and and just such a bad idea. Right. So I'm glad. I'm glad that you brought that. That was the that was the matter of the case that they had highlighted during the during the hearings and they had were not homeschoolers initially. And then they just claimed to be after afterwards after the abuse had happened. So I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. So tell me about like when this broke now, you know, there's of the the the Illinois Christian Home Educators Association in Illinois. And then the Home School Legal Defense Association, HSLDA out of Virginia are really great organizations that support homeschoolers and help mobilize folks. And at AFP, we consider them great partners and we worked hand in glove with them all through this or really impressed. But they had the ear of home. They were the great kind of convening. They put out the the word and people came running. What did you hear from the families in your homeschooling community about this legislation? Yeah. So at first, I think that they were a little confused. They didn't know what was going on and they needed to have, you know, there is a varied there is a varied response. They didn't understand what was happening. They didn't understand why it was a big deal at first. Others were afraid and they started to create a portfolio right away. Others were upset, abused as to the funding issues and how were they expected to be resubjected to their education offices where maybe they had pulled. So, you know, in our experience, we didn't we had a friendly environment in which we started homeschooling. We didn't we didn't have any concerns pulling our kids from they actually were in private Christian school before we started homeschooling. But a lot of the families that we've met that I've gotten to know over the past, especially five, six years, have had negative experiences in their public school. And this isn't to categorize or to classify, characterize public school this way. But that was just their personal experiences. So if we're bullied or they had unfair treatment at the hand of a teacher or administration or they had special learning needs that maybe were not being met adequately, either because of a developmental delay or a physical delay. Then those, you know, those parents went the course with their school district, but kept coming running into brick walls. And so then to they finally, you know, reach the end of themself and pull their kid and do homeschooling. And then now they're being asked to be resubjected to that same system that they ran into brick walls, you know, time and time again. And so homeschooling has afforded an avenue where the government doesn't get involved. And so then people found, you know, some freedom with being able to tailor the education to their child's need. But then to be then resubjected to that as an authority in their homeschooling was very concerning to them. So that was some of the responses. And, you know, some people were just upset and looking for, you know, how can we get involved? But yeah, so I would just say it was it was a it was a varied, varied responses. And then it many people were a little scared to get involved. I think they didn't want to bring too much attention to themselves. Like we just need to mind our business, keep our head down, keep keep going about this. But so really getting people, I don't know, helping them find the confidence that it's going to be OK that you there's this time to use your voice and to use the writing letters, bringing attention to this issue to your to your legislator is going to be helpful right now. So that became important. Yeah, I mean, we really saw it because I remember I was there when we had lobby day. It was the day. Well, I'm sorry, this was the first hearing on the bill in committee and we had some folks who testified. But homeschoolers just send it upon the Capitol. There were there were 6,000 homeschoolers in the Capitol. I was walking through it. I wish I could share some of the video. It was just homeschoolers sitting around the Capitol Rotunda everywhere with their phones out, listening to the hearing while kids are doing homework or kind of hanging around, playing around. And they had their two people up to the their iPhone to listen to the hearing. It was like, you know, old school pictures you see in the 40s of people watching like World Series baseball games on their transistor radio. They're just going around. You just walk around the Seymour. I couldn't get in the Capitol initially because they said it was full. And so like two people had to come out of the Capitol for me to be allowed back in. So you packed up the Capitol and then, you know, the Democrats who were sponsoring the spill tweaked it three times. And one of them was on the night before the hearing. And I think that was very cynical. But what they did, but in response to that, you know, the HSSLDA, the ICHE or the group sent it out each time that bill was tweaked, more. Comments were provided and positions taken virtually than have ever happened in the history of legislation in the Illinois Capitol. Any legislation this this had all three times had more comments and positions taken, which I thought was such a testament. And I can tell you a legislator should notice that it gave a lot of Republicans some backbone and it gave a lot of Democrats some pause to say, Hey, whoa, maybe this is not the easy, you know, low stress legislation that the bill sponsors kind of were advertised that it was. Right. Right. So true. So. How did have a team pack kind of engage in some of this? What a great opportunity for some of these students to really learn. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent opportunity. So team packed in it. We didn't organize as team packers, you know, team packed as a 501C3. They're not they're not aligned with any parties or any candidates. And so I try to be careful with how like we navigate things when it comes to team packed, but. Home school students that happened to team, it happened to go to team packed. They're familiar with the Capitol. They're familiar with the processes. They're familiar with their legislators and they care. So they got involved. And so when like Grace from AFP would host a letter writing party, we would have lots of team packers who would participate in those letter writing parties. They would deliver those letters to the legislators. They showed up at the Capitol on these legislative days. Well, the legislative day that homeschoolers have annually, they were there that day. And then again, for the hearings, team packers showed up with their with their friends, with their families. And they engaged. They were helping to support the events that were held at the Capitol by being part of the team to lead families through the Capitol. They're very familiar with the Capitol, so they're familiar with the tunnels. They're familiar with the entrances. They're familiar with, you know, how to get from offices to different spaces in the rotunda. And so they were there. They were holding doors. They were answering questions for parents. They were doing background work in their homes and their communities by being able to be a sounding board there as well and being able to be just reinforcing when younger parents maybe had questions. They were able to answer those questions regarding how the wording in the bill was bad. We had an event in a neighboring town held by one of our homeschool co-ops that two of our team actors did a Q&A where they presented where the steps of the process of where the bill was at and Sarah, Beth and Jacob answered the questions for the families that were there to understand, you know, at this point and where the legislation is at, this is what families can do. So they were a teaching tool. They were, you know, on the ground, you know, really a grassroots thing, right? And so they just got involved wherever they could. And so that's that's been one of, you know, our greatest joys is just coming alongside these young people to get to watch them work and to thrive and to impact their communities and help people along the way. So that's that's a really cool, a really cool side of it. Yeah. Yeah, that's it's fabulous. I'd love to sit, you know, what I was so I felt fortunate to see was how the grassroots mobilization that occurred within the homeschool community, like that, it can be really effective. You know, we talk about that at AP, we consider our identity to be, you know, grassroots mobilization, helping to aggregate voices so they can be louder to, you know, really affect public policy. And that's what happened here. You know, there's a lot of folks who day in and day out or homeschool their kids or they used to homeschool their kids and they still feel passionately about that freedom, they and they're from all walks of life. I think one of the biggest things that surprised the Democrats on that education committee was how diverse the coalition looked, you know, we had people testifying from the West. You know, African American moms and dads from the West side of Chicago, Latino families from the South side of Chicago, you know, suburban families, downstate, rural, evangelical families. I mean, there was it was this broad coalition. I think they were really surprised that it was a diverse coalition because that's what the homeschool movement looks like now. I mean, right. The since the pandemic, the fastest growing sector of homeschooling is in lower income African American communities because they have failing schools and they want their kids to succeed. I think it's wonderful. And so I think they kind of be able to put that front and center and just the sheer number of voices that were brought to bear to the legislature, I think, made it really effective and it was pretty gratifying to see that end to stop that legislation for sure. Yes, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, one of a couple of things I forgot to mention just as far as team factors being involved is, you know, they're first and foremost in prayer. And then second, on the day that, you know, the hearing was happening in the Education Committee and there are 7000 people at the Capitol or whatever. Home school or team actors and homeschoolers were up in the, I think, maybe even the third level of the Rotunda leading worship. And so it was a totally different environment of what then what you would maybe hear on a typical advocacy day at the Capitol and where team factors are there often for other other types of advocate advocacy days. And so it was just a sweet spirit and wonderful to watch them just engage and know that this is kind of a, I mean, even though numbers showed up and I mean, and he likes to talk about the witness looks, that was kind of a pivotal moment for him, but it was a David and Glya thing because in Illinois, bigger government is what's going to win the day, right? Like so I honestly did not really anticipate that this was ever going to like move in our favor, right? That we were going to see this defeated and, you know, kind of at the end of the session, it was like, OK, well, it didn't go anywhere, but we're, we're waiting in the wings like we're like this. We still have to be ready for continuing to be vigilant with guarding these freedoms that we have in homeschooling in Illinois. Yeah. Great. Well, here's to hoping that it won't come back, but it could. And we're going to be ready to mobilize again and fight it back and kind of preserve that freedom for our families and our kids. That's so. And say the most incredible thing for you and the witness lips. Oh, it is just kind of amazing to me when, you know, short notice like you talked about earlier that, you know, this is coming up before the committee and we're hearing it tomorrow or whatever. And we sat here as a family at different times, just looking at the tallies of the witness lips is going out there. And it was like jumping by the thousand by by the half or 10 minutes or whatever. You just look and the next thing you know, we're at 35, 40,000 or how many of our witness slips it was within a 12 hour, 24 hour period. And just the sure. You know, the amount of people that were out there, not only the homeschool communities, but family members, friends that were hearing about this and how the impacts of it were going to be and just the unity that came by that drew out the state. Something's unheard of in my time of following any politics or politics within Illinois to see that happen. It was just that was that was the encouraging for it to man. Like there's no way we're going to win this. And then you see that. And, you know, the people on the committee probably had their minds made up going into the the meetings, no matter what was going to be said by any of the witnesses that were called upon or whatnot. But the other politicians that weren't necessarily there and seeing those numbers, the witness slips, seeing the numbers of people that showed up at the Capitol for those days and stuff, I'm sure like you mentioned earlier, they took notice of that. And it probably made it very hard for them to to say, hey, I'm on board with this 100 percent or whatnot. And so they had to take note. So. Oh, yeah, I know in the Democratic caucus, there's a lot of discussion. There's discussion about, whoa, wait a minute, why are all these people here? Why are all these witnesses happening? This isn't a slam dunk or an easy thing, which I think is why it didn't, you know, it didn't move forward. So I have a great fun story of a I know a family who's their last child. I think is in private high school, but they homeschooled their kids all the way up to then and they bunch of adult kids and grandkids. And I was talking to the mom and she said to me, oh, well, every time one of the notices goes out that we got to provide comment and witness slips, I call, I send notes to all of my adult kids and make sure that they do it. I've gotten to do it each time that that happened. And I imagine that was replicated thousands of times across the state because it's not only people who are homeschooling right now, it's folks who had the joy of doing it or hope to do it in the future, hope their grandkids can do the future. And I think that's it's important. It's important to be a professor. Yeah. Team factors were doing the same thing and spreading the word, sharing the as soon as they knew with their friends. And so young people were getting involved. Well, here's the open and come back. But I think we're ready to ready to fight fight the good fight again. So that and Christie, I really appreciate you joining us and talking about this. It's an important, important fight. Thank you, David. 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