ARIZONA
New Law Takes Effect
As the school year opened in Arizona this fall, HSLDA was uncertain what the first few months would hold. The home school law had recently been amended, creating the potential for confusion and misapplication. We are pleased and relieved to report that for the most part the transition has been smooth and painless.
Questions regarding testing requirements were the most common elements of confusion. A member family in Maricopa, for example, was asked to submit an evaluation for a child who had just reached the compulsory school age. The law requires standardized testing or evaluation "in the first school year of each pupil's home school program that occurs after the child's 8th birthday and at least every three years thereafter …" Because the child had not reached the age of eight during the last school year, the family was not required to have him/her evaluated.
This contact and other similar situations were resolved. In some instances, HSLDA wrote to the school district on behalf of the family, and in other circumstances we simply directed the family in the proper response to their district's misguided requests.
We are grateful for the relatively uneventful transition for homeschoolers and school districts as both adjust to the new procedures. We are also grateful for the positive changes the new law has introduced for homeschoolers, and we look forward to the greater freedom homeschoolers will have in evaluating their student's academic progress.
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