Members of the North Dakota Home School Association told lawmakers Monday they want to loosen the regulations that govern home schooling in the state, adding they will present legislation over the next three sessions to accomplish their goal.

James Bartlett, executive director of the Home School Association, presented the interim education committee on Monday with a bill draft that would get rid of qualifications for parents who want to teach their children.

The group also wants to end the state requirement that a licensed teacher must monitor the progress of children who are home schooled.

"We would remove parental qualifications from the law so a parent wouldn't have to have a teacher's degree or a bachelor's degree," Bartlett said, who called the state monitoring law a "waste of money."

Bartlett said North Dakota has some of the country's most stringent home schooling regulations along with New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont. The Home School Association's ultimate goal is to get rid of those regulations by the 2013 session.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Wayne Sanstead called the proposal a "move in the wrong direction" at Monday's committee meeting.

"I am certainly, adamantly opposed to what I see here: the removal of monitoring, for example," Sanstead said. "Monitoring is necessary to ensure something is happening for that student."

Rep. RaeAnn Kelsch, R-Mandan, chairwoman of the education committee, said the group's move to deregulate home schooling over three sessions could work in their favor.

"I think it will be a little more palatable for the legislators to move in that direction," said Kelsch, who supports the idea of deregulating home schooling in North Dakota. "It's probably time to allow them to patrol and monitor their own."

(Reach reporter Brian Duggan at 223-8482 or brian.duggan@;bismarcktribune.com.)