When a last-minute bill threatening to criminalize homeschooling appeared in the Illinois State Legislature, urban, rural, and suburban families across the state found themselves at the center of the same fight. HB 2827 would impose oppressive oversight and harsh penalties on homeschool families, including possible jail time, if they did not report their educational activities to authorities. Parents from Chicago to Peoria to Springfield collectively feared the looming fate of their homeschooled children and had a vested interest in preserving a family’s right to educate their children how they choose, no matter the type of schooling.
Americans for Prosperity (AFP) knew this fight would require a strong and expansive coalition of students and families from all backgrounds and quickly assembled powerful voices from across the state to help lead the conversation and drive action. The result was historic. Around 8,000 people mobilized at the Capitol, one of the largest rallies in the state’s history, and over 136,000 witness slips were filed in opposition to three different versions of the bill, crashing the servers. Legislators were forced to disconnect their phones, and the bill never made it out of the Illinois House of Representitives for a Senate vote.
Due to the collective steps each and every advocate took, this diverse coalition became too loud to ignore and successfully dismantled a targeted attack on homeschooling in just 12 short weeks.
Illinois Families Size Up the Emerging Threat
A few months before drone footage and local news cameras captured thousands of families peacefully gathering at the Illinois State Capitol, concerned parents from all corners of Illinois felt a growing conviction that they couldn’t sit on the sidelines while their fate was being decided for them.
In Peoria, Ashton and Jennifer Bandy, both of whom had been homeschooled, decided to homeschool their children as well. As leaders with Illinois Christian Home Educators, they had witnessed several attempts to curb parental rights in the classroom over the years, but this one felt different; it felt personal. The Bandys fielded a flood of messages from concerned parents wanting to understand what the bill might mean for their families.
“When you have a piece of legislation that basically criminalizes parents when they don’t file a piece of paper, everyone needed to take one small step, whether they be student, educator, or teacher,” emphasizes Ashton.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away in the heart of Chicago, Chris and Aziza Butler had similar concerns. After years of working as a youth pastor and as a public school teacher, respectively, the couple witnessed too many students being left behind and falling through the cracks. Homeschooling offered the Butlers the ability to shape their children’s education around faith and family, something many urban families longed for but felt stigmatized for pursuing.
The Butlers had become a trusted resource in their community, breaking down the stigmas of alternative education and helping parents navigate the transition into homeschooling. But when HB 2827 surfaced, Aziza knew their voices were imperative beyond just their neighborhood; they needed to elevate these conversations to the halls of the Capitol, specifically to the Black and Hispanic Caucus.
“One of the legislators that stood with us to oppose [HB 2827] said it’s a pipeline to prison,” recalls Aziza.
Downstate near St. Louis, Christy Black was seeing the same fear take hold in her community. For more than 20 years, she had mentored students and parents through TeenPact, an organization shaping civically engaged and politically capable young leaders in the state. But HB 2827 lit a fire amongst this community that she hadn’t seen before. Regardless of whether students and families were enrolled in homeschool, private schools, pods, microschools, or public schools, they felt compelled to stand up and fight as the rights of one were the rights of all.
The Butlers, the Bandys, and the Blacks all knew the threat was bigger than anything they had faced up to this point. What they lacked was a way to connect their isolated efforts to something larger. That was until AFP brought them all to the table.
AFP Transforms Individual Concern into an Unstoppable Movement
From the moment AFP entered the conversation, legislators knew this would be a different kind of fight. As one of the largest grassroots forces in the country, their team moved quickly, tactically, and aggressively to bring together a broad coalition that spanned political, racial, socioeconomic, and religious groups.
“We had our team and we were ready to fight,” recalls Grace Lattz, Grassroots Engagement Director for AFP-IL. “But first, we had to mobilize a grassroots army so large that it couldn’t be ignored.”
Grace worked closely with Aziza and Chris Butler, amplifying the voices of families in Chicago neighborhoods and ensuring lawmakers understood how the bill would impact urban communities.
“Homeschooling is the fastest growing form of school choice in the Black community,” explains Aziza. “When we asked our community to reach out to the Black Caucus, what we quickly found out is that so many of them did not realize that homeschooling families were right there in their districts.”
In Peoria, Ashton and Jennifer Bandy became a central force for action. With AFP’s guidance, they helped parents file witness slips, prepared them for hearings, and coordinated information across co-ops. Meanwhile, downstate, Christy Black drew on her years of relationship-building with families and students, and furthermore, her experience with TeenPact, to activate them to speak directly with legislators and show up in force in Springfield.
Momentum built quickly. AFP livestreamed hearings, organized buses to the Capitol, hosted briefings, helped families share their stories with lawmakers, and coordinated press events across the state. Between tens of thousands of witness slips and hundreds of phone calls, lawmakers were completely inundated, crashing communication networks and forcing staff to disconnect the phone lines.
That momentum reached its peak on the day of the bill hearing, when nearly 8,000 families filled every hallway, staircase, and hearing room, while the excess poured into the outdoor areas surrounding the Capitol. The crowd was so large that it exceeded the building’s firecode limit, forcing officials to close the doors.
By May, the legislative session concluded, and no vote was called for HB 2827. One of the most aggressive homeschool proposals in Illinois history was effectively dead in the water. In the end, it was the combination of thousands of small steps — parents spreading the word to their neighbors, students sharing their stories with policymakers, communities pulling their resources and offering rides — that drove change and preserved education freedom for families across Illinois.
For the Bandys, the Blacks, and the Butlers, taking one small step alongside Americans for Prosperity transformed their individual efforts into a unified movement that helped keep Illinois one of the freest states in the nation for parents charting the best education path for their children.
Get involved with Americans for Prosperity today to take your first step toward change in your community.
