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ALABAMA

Difficulty in Crenshaw

At the beginning of this school year, the superintendent of Crenshaw County Public Schools sent a letter to the Higher Ground Academy administrator listing 15 students and insisting that a Church School Enrollment Form be filed for each of them.^* Higher Ground Academy is a church school in Alabama through which parents teach their children at home. State law requires that parents file an enrollment form with their local public school superintendent at the time of their child's initial enrollment in a church school. However, there is no provision in state law requiring the form to be filed on an annual basis.

Home School Legal Defense Association Senior Counsel Dewitt Black responded to the superintendent's letter, pointing out that no annual filing of the enrollment form was required. Instead, state law provides that parents must give prior consent to the church school to notify the local public school superintendent whenever their child no longer attends the church school. It is assumed that church school enrollment continues until the local public school superintendent is notified otherwise.

Parents who are asked by public school officials to file the Church School Enrollment Form more than once should contact HSLDA for assistance.

— by Dewitt T. Black