Filed: July 24, 2006

Nature of Case: Mr. and Mrs. P have been homeschooling several of their children for years. Their 5-year-old son had special needs, so they decided to obtain services from the public school. During the 2005-2006 school year, they had several disputes with the school district over whether their son should be reevaluated before he was placed in first grade for the 2006-2007 school year. After this year of dispute, the family decided to homeschool him instead of receiving public school services. The public school filed a notice that it was initiating due process against the family. The family contact HSLDA, who contacted the attorney for the school district to see if the school district would be willing to drop the due process if the family agreed not to seek reimbursement for the services they had had the previous year.

Status: While the school district was drafting their waiver, the U.S. Department of Education promulgated new regulations stating that school districts could not force due process for reevaluations of homeschool students. (This change in the regulations was due to HSLDA’s lobbying and victory in the Fitzgerald case in Missouri. Based on the changed regulations, HSLDA again contacted the school district’s attorney to get the due process dismissed. The school district asked only for a simple statement from the parents that they would not seek reimbursement, which the family gave them. The district agreed to drop the due process. Closed.