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ACROSS THE STATES

Cleaning up stubborn school districts

When Minnesota's homeschool law was first enacted, many school districts requested annual home visits. The only way families could avoid such visits was to provide the district with documentation showing that the legally required subjects were being taught. Eventually, many districts realized that the annual home visit and/or documentation requests were unnecessary and dropped the demand, except in rare cases where a family was actually suspected of neglecting their child's education. Unless there was evidence to the contrary, these districts presumed that homeschoolers were adequately teaching their children.

Some districts, however, continued to require home visits and/or documentation. Two years ago, when it became apparent that Minnesota did not protect the privacy of homeschool records, many families simply refused to supply the documentation. Thanks to this courageous stance, a number of districts were forced to re-evaluate their policies and dropped their excessive demands.

Today, only a handful of school districts still try to demand all required documentation from every homeschool family each year. Home School Legal Defense Association and the Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators are collaborating with the state's Department of Children, Families, and Learning to educate these final few districts about the problems with this procedure.

Minnesota has now had enough experience with homeschoolers to know that it is safe to presume the average homeschool parent is educating in good faith. Home visits and demands for documents should be restricted to those cases where there is an actual reason to suspect a family of educational neglect. It's time to change the policies of Minnesota's most restrictive school districts!

— by Scott W. Somerville