For more than 30 years, families in New Hampshire seeking to homeschool their children have followed a reporting process.

Parents are required to notify either the state Department of Education, their local public school superintendent, or a principal of a nonpublic school that has partnered with the state that they will be educating their child at home. They must keep records of all materials and books used for learning. And they must conduct yearly academic evaluations of their children.

That process first emerged in 1990, with the passage of the state’s home education statute: RSA 193-A. But to Rep. Kristin Noble, R-Bedford, the chairwoman of the House Education Policy and Administration Committee, many of those requirements are unnecessary and put too much bureaucratic onus on home-school parents.

On Monday, Republicans on that committee endorsed a bill by Noble that would make both the one-time notification and the yearly evaluation optional.

“This bill is about putting parents in the driver’s seat of their child’s home education, but it’s also about firmly setting the default position that parents do the right thing by their children,” Noble said during a committee debate Monday.

The legislation, House Bill 1268, is part of an effort by Republicans to strengthen the rights of families looking for alternatives to public school, building on the creation and expansion of the education freedom account program in the last five years.

But HB 1268 also seeks to address a schism that has emerged in recent years between home-schooling families who don’t take education freedom account funding to avoid additional regulations, and families who do. The first group has raised concerns that the growth of the EFA program might lead to lawmakers lumping both homeschooling groups together, which could, in turn, lead to more regulation. The law explicitly states that students who fall under the home education act shall not include students receiving EFAs.

Republicans have praised the bill, known as the Home Education Freedom Act, as a way to fully empower families who don’t want to participate in public education.

But Democrats warn the bill would lower the standards for home education, which could leave children unprepared for adult jobs or for college.

“I think that all the stuff in here paints home education in a bad light,” said Rep. Muriel Hall, D-Bow. “When I’m hearing you don’t have to educate your kids if you don’t want to, I don’t know, I vote no on it.”

In addition to making notification unnecessary, HB 1268 would relax other laws that affect home education.

The bill would exempt home-schooled students from existing laws limiting the hours and days each week they may be employed. Current law restricts children under 16 from working more than three hours per day on school days and 23 hours per week on school weeks, with higher daily limits for weekends and vacation weeks.

And the legislation would require that the Division for Children, Youth, and Families treat home education programs with the presumption that they are valid education, and prevent the agency from using a child’s home schooling as “a negative factor for school attendance or adequacy of meeting a child’s education needs.”

The bill would also stop DCYF from treating any “lack of notice, records, evaluations, or assessments” of a home-schooled child as an indication of a failure to provide education as required by law.

Rep. Mike Belcher, R-Wakefield, praised that change as a necessary corrective to the current approach to home-school families.

“There are some rules and laws that have been put in place that kind of cast an askance glance at homeschool parents and kind of look at them like, ‘Well, maybe you’re doing something wrong,’” Belcher said. “And we just want to make sure in law that we retain 100% the assumption of innocence on the part of parents who choose to homeschool their own children.”

Rep. Loren Selig, D-Durham, criticized the easier restrictions on employment. “I’m trying to make sure that we’re not by the language included in this subjecting those children to the types of things that currently they’re protected against by child labor laws,” she said.

But Katy Peternel, R-Wolfeboro, said the current employment restrictions could deprive some home-schooled children of meaningful opportunities that could benefit their future careers.

“It’s not about child labor, it’s about, oftentimes, home-educated students get as much benefit out of their work experiences as they do out of their actual education,” Peternel said.

Other Democrats took issue with the changes to child-neglect laws.

“If a family keeps their kids home for home education but doesn’t really educate them at all, and the kids don’t get any education, is this saying that that is not a welfare issue?” asked Hall.

“This doesn’t say you don’t have to educate your kids if you don’t want to,” Noble replied. “What it does say is you cannot use education as a reason for neglect. There are people out there that actually think homeschooling is educational neglect. That is why that’s in there.”

The committee recommended the bill, 10-8, along party lines; the bill heads next to the House floor.