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Committee advances child-support bill amid heated debate over Section 5 data-sharing with DCF
Summary
Lawmakers advanced SB 6 to the floor but twice rejected amendments aimed at removing or narrowing a controversial Section 5 that would trigger Department of Children and Families notifications when children withdraw from school. Members cited FERPA, constitutional concerns and the risk of creating lists of otherwise law-abiding families.
A legislative committee voted to report SB 6, a wide-ranging package of supports for children and families, to the floor on March 5 but did so after a lengthy, at-times contentious debate over Section 5 of the bill.
The committee chair presented the substitute language and said the changes remove a citation to Sec. 53-21a and add a provision in which the commissioner of children and families would be required to destroy information received from the education commissioner about children who are not DCF-involved. Representative McGee and others said the bill contains many positive provisions — including child tax credit and school-meal provisions — but that Section 5 raised legal and privacy concerns that would require continued work before final passage.
Why it matters: Section 5 would have created a mechanism for notifications to DCF when children were withdrawn from public school, a step opponents said could…
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