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IOWA

Wilton slaps family with nine-page form

A Home School Legal Defense Association member family went to their local superintendent's office to deliver the required Competent Private Instruction form. The superintendent's secretary accepted it, but, to their surprise, turned around and handed them an additional nine-page form to fill out.* The form asked for emergency contact, medical, and sibling information. The secretary said all parents were required to complete it, even if their children were in a private school or homeschooled.

The family immediately faxed the form to HSLDA. After a quick review, it was clear that none of the information requested on the form was truly required.

We telephoned the superintendent's secretary. She was under the misapprehension that the state department of education wanted all families—homeschool, private school, and public school—to complete the form. We explained to her that not only had she almost certainly misunderstood what the department wanted, but also that there was no law requiring parents to complete such a form. Realizing her mistake, the secretary assured us she would tell school officials that they could not require homeschool families to return the form.

If a school official asks you to fill out any form other than the Competent Private Instruction form, please contact HSLDA.

* See "A plethora of forms".

Riceville corrects PSEO error

Iowa law allows students enrolled in public school (including dual- enrolled homeschool students) to take a limited number of college classes, and the school system is required to reimburse the families for part of the expense. This is known as the post-secondary enrollment option (PSEO).

An HSLDA member family in the Riceville Community School District was interested in using the PSEO for their dual-enrolled homeschool student. To their dismay, they discovered a proposed revision to the school district's policy: "The District will only pay for those PSEO classes taken by students who are enrolled full-time at RCHS."

According to the Iowa Code, a dual-enrolled student may participate in any academic program offered by the school district on the same basis as a regularly enrolled student. Since PSEO classes are an academic program offered by the school district, they must be made available to dual-enrolled students just as they are for full-time students.

On August 12, 2004, HSLDA Attorney Scott Woodruff wrote to the district superintendent, explaining that the district's proposed dual-enrollment policy violated state law and asking the superintendent to correct it.

In a subsequent phone call, the superintendent assured HSLDA that the portion of the policy excluding dual-enrolled students from PSEO eligibility had been removed.

— by Scott A. Woodruff