Mississippi
Difficulties Encountered in Obtaining Certificate of Enrollment Form
When a Home School Legal Defense Association member family in Jackson experienced difficulty in obtaining a certificate of enrollment form by mail from an attendance officer, they asked HSLDA for help. According to the attendance officer, the Office of Compulsory School Attendance Enforcement, created during the 1998 legislative session, had established a new policy that attendance officers were not permitted to mail certificate of enrollment forms to parents intending to conduct home instruction programs. Instead, this policy required parents to personally pick up the forms from the attendance officer’s office. This new policy created a hardship for this particular family, because they have only one car which the father uses to drive to work each day during the time that the attendance officer is in her office.
HSLDA wrote Peggy Peterson, the Bureau Director of the Office of Compulsory School Attendance Enforcement, advising her that this new policy of not mailing certificate of enrollment forms to families is a departure from the custom and practice followed in Mississippi since the home school law was enacted in 1982. Furthermore, it creates a significant burden for some home schooling parents. Many home schooling families live at such distances from the attendance officer’s office that it is quite burdensome for them to have to drive this distance in order to merely pick up a form which could easily be mailed to them. HSLDA pointed out that there was no compelling reason to change the previous policy, which has served both the public school officials and home schooling families for the past 16 years.
There is no language in the applicable statute, Section 37-13-91 of Mississippi Code Annotated, which would prohibit continuing this long-established policy. In fact, according to subsection (3)(c) of Section 37-13-91, the certificate of enrollment shall be “returned” to the school attendance officer. This would indicate that the certificate of enrollment form had first been sent to the parent by the attendance officer before it was “returned” for filing. On the other hand, there is no statutory language requiring attendance officers to mail the forms to families, so it is unlikely that a court would overturn this unfavorable policy.
Shortly after HSLDA wrote a letter of appeal directly to Peggy Peterson, the family received a certificate of enrollment form in the mail. Although HSLDA has received no further response to its letter to the Office of Compulsory School Attendance Enforcement, apparently the offensive policy has been rescinded. Any other member families encountering this type of difficulty should contact our office for assistance.
|
|
Mississippi
Admitted to statehood:
December 10, 1817
Origin of name:
Probably Chippewa—mici zibi—“great river” or “gathering-in of all the waters.”
Motto:
Virtute et Armis—By valor and arms.
|
|
HOME SCHOOL LEGAL DEFENSE ASSOCIATION
