OHIO
Demanding Districts Exceed Regulatory Limits
As reported previously, we are continuing to receive reports that superintendents in various school districts are demanding more information than the regulations require. Their demands disregard the notification requirements outlined in the home school regulations.
Columbiana County
A number of member families in Columbiana County received letters from their superintendent requiring a remediation plan for their child in subjects where the child's standardized test scores had fallen below the 25th percentile. In a letter to the Columbiana County superintendent, Home School Legal Defense Association attorney Michael Smith pointed out that the home school regulations do not require the child to achieve a score at or above the 25th percentile in each subject, but rather a composite score at or above the 25th percentile.
Lawrence County
The board of education informed home school families that their notification was incomplete without the submission of a copy of the teaching parent's high school diploma and a detailed class schedule indicating 900 hours of instruction. Again, these items fall outside the authority of the school district. In addition, a number of home school families were told verbally that Lawrence County intended to conduct home visits with all home school families. Attorney Michael Smith wrote to the superintendent regarding these issues, but we have not received a reply as of this writing.
Warren City School District
A home school family who submitted their notification to the superintendent was informed that they still had to physically go to their local school and "enroll" their child. HSLDA advised the member family not to comply with this request.
Wood County
The office of education returned submitted notifications to families with a "Certificate of Instruction" attached for them to complete.
Delaware/Union County
Families were contacted and informed that their notification could not be "approved" until they declared a grade for their students.
Lancaster City Schools
The school district required that families indicate on their notification which evaluation method they are planning to use at the end of the school year.
None of these requests are required by the home school regulations.
Some observers may consider requests for additional information to be minor. It is specifically these types of abuses of authority, however, that the home school regulations were intended to remedy. HSLDA believes that not complying with such requests is in the best interest of all Ohio homeschoolers.
Family Privacy
A home school family in the Milford Exempted Village School District recently contacted HSLDA. They had discovered that the agenda for a public meeting of the school board included the names of homeschoolers that the superintendent was submitting to the board for approval. Copies of the agenda were distributed to all attendees. The family expressed their deep concern that the details of their home schooling should not be a matter for discussion in such a public forum.
HSLDA directed a letter to the superintendent expressing the need to protect the privacy of families who choose to home school. In the letter, Attorney Smith also pointed out that the home school regulations clearly delegate the authority to excuse children from public school attendance to the superintendent, not the school board. To the superintendent's credit, he sent HSLDA a reply which demonstrated his responsiveness to the concerns of homeschoolers and indicated his intention to deal directly with homeschoolers in the future.
Although the vast majority of contacts from the Ohio school districts were not serious in nature, HSLDA has received substantially more contact calls this school year than last school year.
