On Wednesday, June 4th, 2025, at 10:00am, Jessica Dugas, creator of The Breakthrough Show Network, was present for the latest homeschool press conference at the Connecticut State Capitol building.
Press Conference Transcript:
Peter Wolfgang: (00:00)
We are here today to celebrate your freedom to homeschool in Connecticut and to thank the legislators who supported your efforts before, during, and after the informational hearing that occurred just last month. And we’re going to roll right into that, beginning with Representative Anne Dauphinais, Republican of Killington. Anne…
Anne Dauphinais: (00:25)
Thank you Peter and welcome everybody. I just want to tell you we’re with you. We’re standing for you and we’ll continue to do so. So just know that. Today I stand before you to speak in support of something that lies at the heart of both parental rights and educational diversity, homeschool freedom.
At its core, homeschool is about choice. It’s the ability of parents to direct the education of their children in a way that best fits their learning styles, interests, views, values, and individual needs. Homeschool freedom doesn’t mean rejecting traditional schools. It means recognizing that one size does not fit all. We live in a society that champions diversity, in almost every area so why should education be any exception? Some children thrive in structured classrooms. Others flourish in flexible hands-on learning environments. Homeschooling can offer a personalized education that’s hard to replicate in any conventional setting. It allows for advance in areas of strength and extra support where needed.
Let’s not forget that some families choose homeschooling because of medical needs, special education concerns, or because their local schools may not be safe or adequately resourced. For them, homeschooling isn’t a luxury, it’s a lifeline and a way of life. Critics may say homeschooling lacks accountability, but homeschooling families are often among the most dedicated educators investing enormous time, energy, resources, to ensure their children are not just learning but thriving. What we need is not more red tape, but trust and respect for parents who know their children best. In a free society, educational freedom is essential. Homeschooling is not a threat to education, safety, or children’s health, but a powerful complement to it. By supporting homeschool freedom, we support innovation, respect individual rights and affirm that every child deserves an education and environment that works for them. Let’s protect this freedom, not just for today’s families, but for the future generations who deserve the same right to learn, grow, and succeed on their own terms. Thank you.
Peter Wolfgang: (03:02)
Thank you, Representative Dauphinais. Next, we will hear from Representative Lezlye Zupkus, Republican of Prospect.
Lezlye Zupkus: (03:09)
Thank you. Good morning. It’s great to be here and just know as Representative Dauphinais said, we’re with you. We’re big believers in parental rights and it’s your right to homeschool your kids. Sitting on education and being on children’s a while ago, they always use these reasons for the tragedy as in Waterbury. There was another one years ago for homeschooling and they’re always trying to get their nose under the homeschooling tent.
So we know those had nothing to do with homeschooling. We will continue to fight for you and your right to homeschool and your parental rights. So just keep coming out, keep your voices heard to your legislators. We have been told and there will be some work this summer done on homeschooling. I have requested to be on that committee with some other legislators to ensure that your rights are upheld. And so, thank you for coming out. Continue doing what you do and God bless you.
Peter Wolfgang: (04:20)
Thank you so much, Representative Zupkus. Next up, have Representative Gale Mastrofrancesco of Wolcott and Southington.
Gale Mastrofrancesco: (04:30)
Thank you everyone.
First of all, obviously thank everyone for coming out. see a lot of kids in the audience that they’re getting a real civics lesson being here today, (MESH VIDEO 2 – The following sentences were omitted in the video due to technical glitch: so you understand kind of what’s going on and what we’re trying to do to protect your education and your future. As everybody has said, we’re with you, we support you, and we’ll do everything that we can. Although maybe this year we were able to put a pause on the attack on homeschools,) you have to stay vigilant because the fight is not over. And thank you too to Peter and Leslie Wolfgang for constantly being on the forefront of this issue and keeping people informed. And to all of you guys out there, again, we’re with you anytime you need anything. We’re always here for you. We’re going to keep fighting because you guys deserve it. You deserve your freedom. Our children deserve the best education. But more importantly, it should be a parent’s choice. And we’re always here to fight for parental rights. So thank you.
Peter Wolfgang: (05:16)
Thank you so much. It’s an honor to stand with you honorable legislators and with all you beautiful homeschooling people. Next, we are going to hear from Representative Tammy Nuccio of Tolland..
Tammy Nuccio: (05:28)
Good morning everybody and thank you guys for coming out. This year was eye opening, I think for a lot of people. Everybody thought they were safe with their kids, homeschooling them, which is their right. We all know the best advocate for our kids is ourselves as parents. And I told a legislator up here who was not as favorable to homeschooling as I was, you will never see a more fierce person than somebody who is protecting their child.
Ever. Never. There’s nothing like a mama bear that’s been poked. And once you poke them, they can’t be un-poked. So I tell you guys, seeing you all up at the Capitol, over 2,000 people strong, your voice was heard. The five, six of us now that are up here, we’re six voices. You are thousands strong. And when you show up and you take your time and you make that effort and you raise your voices, they hear you singing in the halls. They hear you chanting. They have to listen to you. So while we can fight up here, we need you. When we come back in a session, you need to keep having field trips. You need to keep being up here. You need to keep having your signs and show them that the bear has been poked and we’re not going back in the cave.
Peter Wolfgang: (06:51)
The bear has been poked and the mama bears are poking back. Thank you so much. Next we’re going to hear from Representative Mark DeCaprio, Republican of Lebanon and surrounding towns.
Mark DeCaprio: (07:06)
Good morning everybody. I just want to say we have, I’m a homeschooling dad and a homeschooling grandfather also, okay?
We homeschooled seven of our children and they’re all out doing productive things for society right now. And we have 17 grandchildren we’ve been blessed with so far and that’s not over. Four of those families are homeschooling and plan to homeschool. So we’re here like the other representatives said before me, we’re here to support you and we will fight any future regulation or any imposing of our parental rights here in Connecticut. Thank you very much and thank you all for being out here. Thank you.
Peter Wolfgang: (07:55)
Parents are the primary educators of their children. These wonderful legislators know this. Next, we are going to hear from Representative Craig Fishbein, Republican of Wallingford.
Craig Fishbein: (08:12)
Thank you everybody for coming here today, standing up for your rights, and certainly we’re standing up for you. You know, our Constitution provides everybody who is a citizen of Connecticut free public education. However, when that free public education is not worth anything, we have to take those things into our own hands. When that free public education exposes our children to things that we don’t think is appropriate, we need to take those things into our own hands. So I just stand here aligned with the other representatives that are here supporting you, supporting your kids. Because after all, it is all about the children. So thank you. Once again, thank you for coming here today.
Peter Wolfgang: (08:57)
Now let me just close out that portion, the opening portion of this press conference by saying we have a voter registration table right over there. Non-partisan activity, voter registration. If you are not yet registered to vote, now is the time. We are so grateful for all these wonderful legislators that stood with the homeschoolers last month and will continue to do so. You heard it, things are gonna happen in the summer that are gonna continue to stand for your right to homeschool in the great state of Connecticut through the summer into next year and beyond. Thank you honorable legislators.
Let me just say this too, as we segue into our speakers today. Every single legislator that you just heard from thus far was a Republican, but homeschooling is diverse in the state of Connecticut. We have supporters here in the state of Connecticut that understand the diversity of homeschooling because they represented themselves. Homeschoolers are atheists, Christians, Democrats, Republicans, black people, Hispanic people, white people, liberals, conservatives, independents. Every ethnic and socioeconomic group in the state of Connecticut that you can imagine includes within it people who homeschool. And so when you attack the right of parents to homeschool, here in the state of Connecticut, you are attacking everybody.
And when the homeschoolers come out, man, here comes everybody. We’re gonna hear from some of those representatives now, beginning with Diane Connors, president of Connecticut Homeschool Network.
Diane Connors: (10:52)
Thank you. Greetings.
Thank you everyone for being here today. But what brought us here? What brought us here today? In the last several months, we have witnessed a tragedy to triumph. A tragic situation having nothing to do with homeschooling catalyzed a sudden legislative information session where the voices of tens of thousands of stories went unspoken. In knowing the homeschool community, one understands that our strength against unwelcome and unwanted regulation is owed to the diversity of the community. No other community represents as many families from different walks of life. It is bigger than all political parties. The face of homeschoolers includes: Christians, Atheists, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Democrats, Independents, Unaffiliated and Republican voters, black people, white people, hispanic people, blended families, many of them, liberals, conservatives, and this diversity is, as Peter said, from every socioeconomic class.
We are everywhere. We collectively are united in our love of homeschooling, and yet we are unique individuals within this community. Homeschoolers don’t need additional legislation. The positive outcome from the information session was the legislators on the Education and Children’s Committee listened to what many of them did not know. And they heard.
They heard the homeschool presenters and they heard over 4,000 adult and children’s voices in chorus within the legislative building singing: hands off our kids. We call on legislators to fiercely show continued bipartisan support for what we need and that is to sustain our current freedom and liberty by following the simple and pristine compulsory education statute that we all know as Connecticut General Statute 10-184: Duties of Parents. “All parents shall instruct their child…” That is our first duty. It is our regulation. It is our triumph. We have decades of success behind us and ahead of us. We are not broken and we do not need to be fixed. What we need is legislators’ continued bipartisan support. Thank you.
Peter Wolfgang: (13:27)
Thank you. You heard it from Diane. Homeschoolers will not be scapegoated.
And you know, we’re here today to thank those legislators, some of whom you heard earlier, but we should also, all of us who care about the rights of parents to homeschool their children without government interference here in the state of Connecticut, we all owe a debt of gratitude as well to Diane Connors, Deborah Stevenson, to the groups they represent, CHN and NHELD, to TEACH, the Christian homeschooling group. You guys were the ones who brought out thousands, and you know this informational hearing, they would only allow two advocates for homeschooling to speak. They were Deborah and they were Diane, who you just heard from. And they were so powerful that the attacks on homeschooling died this year because of them.
So we’re grateful to our legislators and we are grateful to the advocates that we are blessed with here in the state of Connecticut who defend your right to homeschool. Thank you both. And there are other groups as well, including our next speaker. Sheila Matthews from Able Child. Able Child has national connections, always working to support issues of children’s safety and express support for homeschool freedom. Ladies and gentlemen, Sheila.
Sheila Matthews: (14:56)
Thank you. We are here today because Connecticut homeschoolers and every parent’s right to make decisions for their children are under direct attack.
This is about more than education. This is about standing up to a government that has lost its way, a state that silences its own people and tramples the most basic freedoms. Able Child has seen firsthand how Connecticut’s behavioral health officials who are responsible for overseeing the psychotropic drugging of children in state care have silenced dissent. When we tried to speak out, they cut our microphones off, live on Connecticut television, changed the rules and closed public comments. Lawmakers here were silent. When a state blocks human rights organizations from participating in public process, that is the very definition of a failed state. This is exactly why we back homeschoolers and celebrate their win that defeated the overreach of the state.
The state has done this before and very few fight back. Homeschoolers fight back. Able Child is so proud to stand united with homeschoolers and this is not the first time we have joined forces. Let’s remember, Connecticut made national news attacking our rights.
Let’s recap. Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook suspect shooter, was not homeschooled. He was missing from school for an entire year in eighth grade. And yet the state of Connecticut failed to provide oversight and intervention. And the media covered all that up in the investigation. That wasn’t a homeschooling issue. It was a state oversight failure. Yet again, instead of addressing their own shortcomings,
The state continues to attack homeschoolers and law abiding gun owners. This pattern of failed police investigations into child abuse by state providers, followed by scapegoating innocent families must stop. Our lawmakers have failed us on both sides. We urge them to change. Transparency and accountability are essential for public safety and trust. We are here to put the state on notice. We are the people. We stand with homeschoolers, not only in Connecticut, but across the nation. We will not allow the failures of state agencies to become an excuse for over-regulation and scapegoating of responsible families. Connecticut now has maxed out its legal limit hoarding $1.4 billion in taxpayer money in a rainy day fund. We call this taxation without representation. Plain and simple. The people’s voices are being ignored and their rights are being trampled. We stand united with the homeschoolers. Their defeat of this bill happened because they fought back, because they refused to be intimidated or silenced. Fear is not the answer.
Congratulations to the brave homeschoolers and the very few lawmakers that you saw up here with courage who have fought hard for this win. Thank you Connecticut Homeschoolers.
Peter Wolfgang: (18:48)
Homeschoolers will not be scapegoated and children are not mere creatures of the state.
And that quote, children are not mere creatures of the state, that was the US Supreme Court 100 years ago in 1925 in Pierce vs. Society of Sisters. Your right to be the primary educators of your children, that children are not mere creatures of the state, has been recognized for 100 years. How dare they try to take that away from us?
Our next speaker is Matt Samuelson, homeschooling father from Glastonbury, and friend of TEACH. He is delivering a message on behalf of Tim Knotts, the president of TEACH Connecticut, who could not be with us. TEACH, by the way, is The Education Association of Christian Homeschoolers in Connecticut. Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Samuelson.
Matt Samuelson (19:54)
Connecticut’s acknowledgement of the primacy of parents in raising and educating your children extends back before its modern constitution. In fact, the language of statutes goes back more than 100 years before the founding of this nation.
But even at the federal age of 375 years old, our statute obligating parents to educate their children is but an infant compared to the ancient traditions of family as the building block of society. Even more, it was God Almighty who spoke through Moses telling parents they must teach their children. The ancient Israelites were told to teach their children to love the Lord, to remember his goodness and his people. They were told to talk to their children when they sit at home, when they would walk along the road, and when they lay down and when they got up. This kind of education was a whole life education that studied from sunup to sundown and included what was taught at home and in the world to teach them their history.
It was not the culture of the nations, but the culture of God’s people that parents were to pass on to their children. Now it’s only in the last 150 years that the state has taken upon itself the role of parent-in-chief.
Instead of enabling, trusting, and supporting actual parents, the bureaucracy, never content with what it has, has devoured parents’ rights one by one.
We parents echo the words of our great founding document. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that they among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government.”
So how can we, the governed, stand by while we allow a government to take from us the freedoms, nay, the rights with which our Creator has endowed us? We cannot. Our children are a very gift from God to their parents. They are not the property of the state. They are not drifts for the mills of industry. They are not blank slates to be filled with a meaningless thribble of relativism and post-truth philosophy. They bear our image and the image of God who made us. They are precious and unique, each given to his or her parents to be nurtured and taught. So we say this to those in the halls of power, that our founders established this government not to restrain the people, but knowing that power corrupts instead framed our constitution to restrain the government from tyrannizing its people. To snatch the children from the hands of an entire class of innocent parents based solely on ignorance and suspicion is despotic. You were elected to represent the people, not to lord over them. God instituted governments to punish wrongdoers, not to burden the righteous. Do your job. Fulfill your obligations and leave homeschooling parents in peace to do the same.
Peter Wolfgang (23:56)
Thank you Matt. Now we’ve said that the diversity of homeschooling is a thing in the state of Connecticut. You’ve heard a Christian message. You’ve heard from Republican legislators. Now you’re going to hear a different message. Alicia Teitelbaum is a homeschool mother who is active in the Fairfield County community. She is a Democrat who supports homeschool freedom. Alicia.
Alicia Teitelbaum (24:27)
Hello everyone. My name is Alicia Teitelbaum and I’m a bear that’s been poked. I have homeschooled three children for the last three years. I am a Democrat, I’m a physical therapist, and I am a mama bear of three kids. They’ve had a different educational experience the past six weeks. They’ve made posters, they’ve spoken on their First Amendment right, they spoke to representatives to learn about all the non-textbook ways a legislative law could get into place. They learned about dummy bills, emergency certification, and implementers.
I didn’t even know this. How many sneaky ways legislation can happen. None of the proposed regulations would have prevented the tragedy of the kidnapping and torture of the Waterberry boy. heard multiple times the government says they need eyes on us in our homeschool children. We are in the community. We are in the grocery stores. We’re in the libraries. We’re at sporting events. We’re meeting the local firefighters. We’re meeting the local police department. We are surrounded by any public mandated reporter and I myself am a mandated reporter.
Corey Paris represents my city of Stamford. I am in his district. In his district, 29% of Stanford high school students were chronically absent last year. 36.3% of West Hill high school students were chronically absent. That means 1,436 students were absent in his district last year alone.
We only have about 800 homeschool students in his district. Why is he bothering with us? One of the students is Jonathan Escobar. He was in kindergarten in Stamford Public Schools. He left with his mom to go to Bridgeport, and they never followed up to make sure he was in another school. We haven’t heard about this case that much in the press. And he was found beaten to death by his stepfather with a bat four months later.
He was murdered. There was no follow up. There was no DCF. There was no regulation of where he went. This government has failed. Please follow up with the statewide 80,000 students that are missing right now. Representative Paris has multiple lockdowns in his district due to fights. A seventh grade teacher last year was accused of sexually assaulting 12 students in his district and he had no idea about this. The vice principal of West Hill High School made a false police report saying that a student assaulted her and she wrongly accused this student for months. Paris also is choosing to still go after homeschoolers instead of cleaning up his own district. What would have happened? What would have saved Jonathan Escobar and the Waterbury boy would have been follow up of schools and the office support staff. Instead, representative Paris is suggesting to create a registry of checks in for homeschoolers. Isn’t this Connecticut a sanctuary city?
Aren’t we a sanctuary state that allows immigrants to be here freely? Immigrants who are nervous about ICE, who are homeschooling, are now going to be registered? Isn’t this not what Connecticut is supposed to be about? Democrats like myself believe everyone should be able to have a freedom of education to learn. I don’t agree with the bullying tactics of the presidential administration, telling Harvard what to teach and what to learn. Why is
the state of Connecticut now suggesting that they know better of what curriculum we should teach our children. They’re going to mandate a proposed mandate to teach our children their curriculum that is not working in public schools. Today I’d like to represent the Fairfield County Science Olympiad team who just got fourth place in the entire national competition.
So our curriculum isn’t so bad if they actually rank the highest of any Connecticut state represented team. So I’m really proud of what you guys did representing the state of Connecticut. We thank you for everything that you guys have done flying to Nebraska and representing us. Homeschoolers want the public school money to stay with the public schools. We want them to thrive. We want their community to thrive. We don’t want to take away their money and creating more oversight for us homeschoolers with paperwork and pencil pushers. Keep the money in with the public schools. Don’t have us take it. Leave us to teach our curriculum our way, to teach our children our way that we would like them to learn. Thank you very much.
Peter Wolfgang (28:56)
Thank you, Alicia. Finally today, we’re going to hear from Deborah Stevenson. You all know Deborah. Deborah is an attorney and the founder of the National Home Education Legal Defense, NHELD. She is a strong advocate for individual rights in homeschooling in Connecticut. Deborah.
Deborah Stevenson (29:24)
Thank you Peter.
I would like to address something you said. I would like to address something that you said Peter about a Pierce versus Society of Sisters. How dare they? Yes, how dare they ignore that, that the children are not the creatures of the state. But how dare they, in the informational session, when all the commissioners of every agency sat there and completely and totally ignored, even the attorneys, completely and totally ignored the first sentence of Connecticut General Statute 10-184 which is: The Duty of Parents. What did that say? It said that all parents shall instruct their own children. Period. End of story. That is where we get our right. That has been in effect since the code of 1650. And every one of these state legislators who sat there, not the legislators, the commissioners, and the agency representatives and the agency attorneys completely and totally ignored that and Pierce versus Society of Sisters. Yes, how dare they. Other than that, I want to get my grounding here because I do want to thank people. I want to thank the legislators on the chair, co-chairs of the education and the children’s committee for backing off, for recognizing that they didn’t do it correctly and they shouldn’t do it without any knowledge at all or correct knowledge being presented to them by their own state agencies. They need a lot of work to do to get up to speed, to know where our rights are, let alone where their rights stop. In any event, I do want to thank them for not following through on regulation at this time. However, we did hear today, unbeknownst to me, that there is going to be continuing conversation about the homeschool issue during the summer. I don’t know what that’s all about, but rest assured, we will be finding out and acting accordingly. I do want to thank all of the organizations, however, who have supported us, aside from the legislators. I want to thank Peter’s organization, Family Institute of Connecticut. It’s done a great job for us throughout many, many years. I’d like to thank Sheila Matthews from Able Child, a national organization, and there are many, many more organizations who are not here today who back us here in Connecticut for homeschooling freedom. Most importantly, I’d like to thank all of the parents, the thousands of parents and children across the state who have taken the time to contact their legislators, to come up to the Capitol and who have voiced their concerns throughout these long days. Your voices were heard literally, loudly and clearly and we are forever grateful for that. They need to continue to be heard and I’m sure that this homeschooling group will raise those voices again when necessary. Finally the efforts you have made are a lasting testament to show everyone that homeschoolers in Connecticut of all faiths, political persuasions and backgrounds stand totally united today. And we have stood united in the past and we will stand united in the future.
Rest assured, this is not going to stop. Our unity is not going to stop because we are standing for the single most important principle of retaining our most profound right, freedom for home school in Connecticut and hopefully the nation. Thank you all and enjoy this beautiful day and the beautiful summer to come. Thank you.
Peter Wolfgang (33:10)
Thank you Deborah, thank you all our speakers. You heard it, homeschoolers are not going to stop. Homeschoolers will raise their voices. Will you raise your voices to defend homeschoolers?
We will continue to stand here and fight for all of you and with all of you and alongside all of you. This concludes our press conference. I don’t know if there’s any media here who have any questions. If so, our speakers will take questions now.
In that case, if there are no questions, we’re grateful to CTN, to those of you who are here with the cameras who showed up. We’re grateful to all of you who came out. You came out today, you’ve been coming out regularly, you were there the day of the informational hearing, you just heard it, we may need you through the summer, and we’re certainly going to need you next year and the years beyond. But take heart in this, you won. You won this year.
And we will continue to fight every year until this threat goes away. Thank you and God bless you.
This report is the full recording of the conference which featured the following speakers in the continued fight for homeschool freedom in the state of Connecticut and beyond:
Peter Wolfgang Executive Director, Family Institute of Connecticut
Representative Anne Dauphinais Republican – Killingly
Representative Lezlye Zupkus Republican – Prospect
Representative Gale Mastrofrancesco Republican – Wolcott and Southington
Representative Tammy Nuccio Republican – Tolland
Representative Mark DeCaprio Republican – Lebanon (also a homeschooling father and grandfather)
Representative Craig Fishbein Republican – Wallingford
Diane Connors President, Connecticut Homeschool Network (CHN)
Sheila Matthews Co-Founder, Ablechild (Children’s rights and advocacy group)
Matt Samuelson Homeschooling father from Glastonbury, speaking on behalf of Tim Knotts, President of TEACH Connecticut (TEACH = The Education Association of Christian Homeschoolers in Connecticut)
Alicia Teitelbaum Homeschooling mother from Stamford, Democrat, physical therapist
Deborah Stevenson Attorney and Founder, National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD)
For more information on this cause or video recording, please contact:
Deborah Stevenson, NHELD: https://www.nheld.us/
Diane Connors, CHN: https://cthomeschoolnetwork.org/
Jessica Dugas, The Breakthrough Show Network: https://thebreakthroughshownetwork.com/
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