Oregon
ESD assigns student grade levels
The Northwest Regional Education Service District (ESD) recently contacted home schooling families in its district requesting that they notify the ESD immediately if the information on file for their children, including grade level information, was inaccurate. In its letters, the ESD automatically assigned grade levels for each student based on his or her date of birth. The letters indicated that unless families corrected any errors, the ESD would expect standardized achievement tests to be administered to students at grades 3, 5, 8, and 10 based on the grades that the ESD had assigned.
Home School Legal Defense Association contacted the ESD, acknowledging that both § 339.035 of Oregon Revised Statutes and § 581-021-0026 of the Oregon Administrative Rules require achievement testing at certain grade levels. However, we also pointed out that so long as parents administer the testing at the required grade levels and make test scores available to the ESD upon request, they are under no additional obligation to notify their ESD of their children's grade levels.
- Dewitt T. Black
