Across the States
School District Won’t Let Family Go
When Home School Legal Defense Association members Steven and Tabitha Hopple moved from Pennsylvania to Maryland in March 2007, they notified their former school system of the move.
On July 6, the Central Dauphin School District in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, sent the Hopples a letter, asking for the family’s year-end paperwork and enclosing three pages of Pennsylvania homeschool regulations. The family courteously reminded the school system that they had previously given notice that they moved out of Pennsylvania in March, well before year-end items were due.
Still, the school’s program specialist responded:
We never received a request for your records to be sent to a new school. Have you registered with your new school district and submitted your portfolio there? Please provide me with your new address and school district for our records. I must submit a change of address form with our administration building.
The family called HSLDA for help. Staff attorney Scott Woodruff then wrote a polite letter to the program specialist, explaining that the Hopples were no longer subject to Pennsylvania law and asking the program specialist to withdraw the demand for the family’s information.
More than two weeks passed with no reply. Woodruff wrote another letter and sent it certified mail. This time, the program director replied. The letter’s single, terse sentence read: “Please consider the matter closed.”
— by Scott A. Woodruff
