NEW JERSEY
Department of Education's Unfriendly Guide
Home School Legal Defense Association has obtained a copy of a document entitled "Homeschooling in New Jersey" published by the New Jersey Department of Education and dated April 1997. This document provides guidance to local boards of education in establishing policies for home education programs conducted by parents for their children. This document is fraught with inaccuracies and makes recommendations which have no legal basis. It is uncertain to what extent this document has been distributed to local school districts and what local policies may be implemented as a result of this guide.
On May 8, 1997, HSLDA attorney Dewitt Black wrote Leo Klagholz, the New Jersey Commissioner of Education, critiquing the guide and recommending that its provisions be rescinded immediately. This is a potentially serious threat to homeschooling parents if local school districts attempt to enforce the legal positions taken by the department of education.
Among the most troublesome provisions of the guide are the following interpretations of the law and recommendations to local school officials:
- Home school attendance must be during the same days and hours that the public schools are in session;
- Parents must notify the superintendent of the school district in which they reside in advance of the period for which they plan to educate their children at home—the notice to include the name, age, and grade level of the child;
- Parents must determine a child's academic progress through testing;
- Homeschooling parents must submit curriculum information in the form of "academic subjects, goals/objectives, comparable days/hours, books/materials" in order to show academic equivalency; and
- The curriculum proposed by the homeschooling parent must be "accepted" by the local superintendent or the board of education.
Virtually all of the key provisions of the department of education's guidelines are contrary to state law and, therefore, unenforceable. No policy or guidelines established by the department of education or a local school district have the force of law which must be followed by parents conducting home education programs. Accordingly, HSLDA member families in New Jersey are advised that they may disregard the guidelines and need not abide by any policies developed by local school districts in response to receiving these guidelines.
Legal Contacts Continue
Despite the fact that no New Jersey members were in court during the 1996-97 school year, many families were contacted by local school district officials questioning the sufficiency of their home education program. Families in 25 school districts experienced serious legal contacts requiring the intervention of HSLDA attorneys to resolve these difficulties. The recurring issue was whether parents instructing their children at home were providing them with instruction equivalent to that offered in the public schools. In every case, the school officials accepted the curriculum information provided by parents as recommended by HSLDA.
In determining what constitutes equivalent instruction, HSLDA relied upon the case of State v. Massa, a 1967 case interpreting New Jersey law to require only a showing of academic equivalence. This means instruction in the required courses, not that each course must include the identical information offered to public school students.
One of the reasons many parents elect to home educate their children is that they object to the information being imparted to students through the public school curriculum. Parents have the freedom to choose an education option which is compatible with the values they want imparted to their children, and this is implicit in New Jersey's compulsory attendance law which recognizes various options for parents.
To require that the course content be the same as that offered in the public schools would essentially eliminate private education in New Jersey in violation of the principle established in the 1925 U.S. Supreme Court case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters recognizing the right of parents to choose an educational option other than public school. HSLDA has always maintained that a basic description of the home school curriculum is sufficient to indicate that equivalent instruction is taking place.
The New Jersey school districts with the most serious legal contacts during the 1996-97 school year included the following:
Montville Township Public Schools
Bergenfield Public Schools
Kingsway Regional School District
Hamilton Township Public Schools
Lacey Township School District
Cinnaminson Township Public Schools
Piscataway Township Schools
High Bridge Public Schools
Cherry Hill Public Schools
Willingboro Public Schools
North Bergen School District
Clifton Public Schools
Pennsauken Public Schools
South Amboy School District
Flemington-Raritan School District
Millville Public Schools
Dover Public Schools
Old Bridge Township Public Schools
Middlesex Public Schools
Delanco Township Public Schools
Riverside Public Schools
Upper Pittsgrove Township Public Schools
East Orange School Districts
Franklin Township Public Schools
Hanover Township Public Schools
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