If you and your child EVER go into the City of Houston for a homeschool day, homeschool courses, or museum or zoo classes, this is of interest to you.
Greater Houston Area Home Educators, a regional group of Texas Home Educators, was launched in 1994 when Harris County decided to instigate a daytime curfew. The City of Houston had already started it’s juvenile curfew in Nov. 9, 1991 without any push back from homeschoolers. When we heard about Harris County beginning to consider this ludicrous law, the rally call was made and over 400 people showed up for the public hearing. Finally, the last time Harris County reviewed their Juvenile Curfew law, they totally took daytime curfew off the table.
We can only hope that this will happen at the Houston City Council meeting on Wednesday, July 10th, 2019 at 9AM. We suggest that if you wish to speak on this issue, that you arrive around 8AM. Yes, we know this is a hassle, however, if you bring homeschool friends, it will be more fun.
You can contact City Council here: http://www.houstontx.gov/council/
We suggest that you:
- be polite,
- let them know that Greater Houston Area Home Educators alerted you to the issue;
- explain that your child participates in classes inside Houston;
- explain that truancy is now a non-criminal offense and therefore a daytime curfew is not necessary; and
- any other issues that affect you personally.
- Be sure to thank them for their time.
We are not sounding an alarm. Reasonable people can come to a reasonable conclusion regarding daytime curfew. The agenda states that this is a: PUBLIC HEARING to consider whether to continue the Juvenile Curfew Ordinance (Sections 28-171 – 28-175, City of Houston Code of Ordinances)
This ordinance includes daytime AND nighttime curfews.
So this is just a discussion as to whether or not they should continue this daytime curfew or follow the wisdom of Harris County and take it off the books.
This will free up their officers to patrol their area. The police may say this is a “tool in their tool belt” in order to give them a reason to stop and check juveniles. However, they issued less than 200 tickets last year. This is a decreasing monetary program. It should just be abolished. If people are on the street during the wrong time of day, they should not be stopped, and possibly taken in, for just being in the public during certain hours of the day.
Contact City Council here: http://www.houstontx.gov/council/
