Calls from across the country have been flooding into the D.C. State Superintendent’s Office from families who are profoundly unhappy about the proposed restrictions on homeschooling.

The regulations have been a hot topic locally over the past four months, with education officials drafting multiple versions, forming a working group devoted to the rules, and setting several hearings to gauge public opinion.

Michael Donnelly, a lawyer with the Home School Legal Defense Association who has been involved with the issue in D.C., said he’s been sending out alerts to homeschooling families across the nation updating them on the city’s plans.

The result has been a surge in calls and correspondence blasting the rules being considered.

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Historically, D.C. parents have enjoyed nearly unlimited freedom to educate their children as they wish.

But in January, the State Superintendent’s Office created a first draft of new rules that dictate subjects parents must teach and require parents to permit government officials to keep tabs on them.

Homeschoolers felt that the changes were a knee-jerk reaction to the tragic deaths of four D.C. children whose mother, Banita Jacks, has been charged with murder in the case.

She took the girls out of public schools, saying she’d homeschool them.

Those drafting the rules cut out some of the stricter proposals in the latest version. But homeschoolers are still far from satisfied.

“These regulations create situations where educational bureaucrats are violating the fundamental constitutional rights of parents, and are unnecessarily broad and difficult to manage,” Donnelly said. “[They] have breached the trust between the District’s government and its citizens.”

Maria Ibanez, a spokeswoman for the State Superintendent’s Office, said Board of Education members will vote on the rules in the middle of the month.

In the meantime, “we are logging the calls and collecting written responses from the public,” she said in an e-mail.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com