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Home School Heartbeat in Connecticut
Middletown
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WIHS
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104.9
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FM
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Uncasville
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WNLN-LP
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89.9
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FM
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Connecticut
District treats guidelines as mandatory
In June, the superintendent of Hamden Public Schools sent a letter to a Home School Legal Defense Association member family notifying them that they had an "obligation" to file a notice of intent to conduct a home instruction program. The letter stated that unless the parents filed the notice of intent by July 12, 2002, the superintendent would consider their children to be truant. Additionally, the superintendent threatened to report the parents to the Connecticut Department of Children and Families for educational neglect if the deadline for filing the notice of intent was not met.
HSLDA Attorney Dewitt Black wrote the superintendent, pointing out that the filing of the notice of intent was part of the suggested procedures for home instruction developed by the Connecticut State Board of Education on November 7, 1990. These suggested procedures are not law, so parents may not be compelled to comply with them. Black also noted that, like the vast majority of homeschooling families in Connecticut, the family in Hamden intended to voluntarily comply with the state board of education's guidelines. The guidelines set the time for filing the notice of intent within 10 days of the start of the home instruction program, not July 12, 2002, as demanded by the superintendent. After receiving HSLDA's letter, the superintendent agreed to accept the family's notice of intent according to the guidelines.
Parents electing not to comply with the guidelines adopted by the state board of education must nevertheless meet the requirements of Connecticut General Statutes Annotated § 10 184, which requires a parent to send a school age child to public school unless the parent ". . . is able to show that the child is elsewhere receiving equivalent instruction in studies taught in the public schools." A parent choosing an educational option for a child other than public school is not required by this statute to take the initiative to show public school officials that the child is receiving equivalent instruction. Instead, the parent must be able to show that the child is receiving equivalent instruction in defense of any court proceeding in which the sufficiency of the instruction is being challenged. Of course, any such court proceedings should not be initiated unless there is credible evidence that the parent is failing to provide equivalent instruction. The state department of education deems compliance with the suggested procedures as satisfying the equivalency requirements of § 10-184. Because of this and because of the subjective nature of the term "equivalent instruction," HSLDA recommends compliance with the suggested procedures.
— Dewitt T. Black
