The Senate Education Committee unanimously advanced Senate Bill 59 before a packed room of home-school supporters.

In addition to scaling back districts' authority, the measure would simplify the process by which families seek district exemptions from compulsory-attendance laws.

A dozen home-school parents and advocates testified in favor of the bill, saying it would give them more flexibility and streamline the exemption process from one district to the next.

Several parents shared their resentment of home visits by district officials or case workers from the state's Division of Child and Family Services who demand proof that their children were exempt from attending traditional public school.

"For a mother to go through a threat of a government bureaucrat or a rapist or any [other] threat to her children . . . is tyranny," said Holly Robbins, an Orem home-school mother who told of a home visit from a DCFS case worker representing herself as an Alpine School District employee.

SB59 requires districts to grant an exemption as long as home-school parents sign an affidavit confirming their child will be educated at home and get instruction in core subjects as defined by the state.

rlynn@sltrib.com