| From the HSLDA E-lert Service: |
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| Date: From: Subject: | 8/9/2002 5:13:04 PM Scott W. Somerville, Esq., Staff Attorney of HSLDA Nevada--Department of Education Pushing for Curriculum Approval of Home Schoolers |
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---------------------------------------------------------------------- From the HSLDA E-lert Service... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear HSLDA Members and Friends, The Nevada Department of Education is trying to control the content of every home school program in Nevada. They have advised local school districts that every home school curriculum must now comply with the State's new "Academic Standards." This is a dramatic reversal of policy that could affect every Nevada home schooler not using an "approved correspondence course." (The correspondence courses on the approved list must meet the Standards to be approved.) This is a serious situation. If the Department of Education does not change its position, many families may be ordered to change the way they teach their children. Few home school curricula are designed to match Nevada's secular Academic Standards. Home schoolers who insist on using the curriculum of their choice now face a genuine risk of prosecution. HSLDA and home school leaders in Nevada are already working together to change this policy. If this effort fails, we must change Nevada's law. ACTION REQUESTED 1) Communicate. Nevada is one of two states in the country that has no active state-wide home school organization. If you are a member of a local support group, please make sure this information reaches everyone in your group. If you know other home schoolers online, please pass this message on to them. Encourage people to sign up for HSLDA's free e-lert service. 2) Activate. If you are not in a local support group, it may be time to find one. Ask your home schooling friends about groups in your area. Contact your county's home school administrator, if you need to. 3) Legislate. This problem was caused by two words ("equivalent instruction") in state law, and the most straightforward solution to the problem would be to take those two words out of the law. We need to contact each legislator in Nevada to see who will support home school freedoms. With a lot of prayer, patience, and hard work, a united home school community could get a good home school bill enacted into law when the Legislature opens for business next February. BACKGROUND For years, Nevada home schoolers have had two basic choices. They can either use a curriculum from the State Department of Education's "approved correspondence course" list, or they can consult with a licensed teacher from any state or a homeschool parent with at least three years' experience. (There are more options, but these are the ones that really matter.) Then HSLDA got a call from a home school leader in Churchill County. The home school administrator there told one of the home schoolers in her group that he would not accept KONOS as a home school curriculum. When home schoolers told him that the law allowed parents with a consultant to use any curriculum they wanted, the administrator handed her the following email from the State Department of Education: - - - - - - - - - - July 25, 2002 Dear Home School Administrators, FYI-I am getting some calls from parents in various districts telling me someone at the district office is telling them that if they choose a legal option other than the "approved correspondence program" such as a consultant, they can use whatever curriculum they want to. In case someone is giving out this information - this is not the case. Whatever curriculum a homeschooling parent chooses, someone in the district has to be familiar with it, or review it, to be able to know it indeed matches the state standards. For various reasons they may want to choose a correspondence program for example that is not on the approved list (they like it, it's less expensive etc. however it couldn't be on the approved list because the correspondence program is not accredited). In that case it's kind of a catch 22 because they don't want to purchase the curriculum to have it reviewed and then have someone say it doesn't match the state standards. However, it may be hard to make the determination from a scope and sequence only. If a program is accredited the correspondence program may want to contact me to find out about sending in a sample of curriculum to have it reviewed as per matching the standards - and then hopefully get board approval to be on the approved correspondence program list. If you have further questions, please call me. Thanks- Leslie James - - - - - - - - - - I have spent the last seven days trying to make sure this is not just some horrible mistake. Unfortunately, The Attorney General's office has apparently advised the Department of Education that Nevada law requires each home school program to match the state's new Academic Standards. (You can see what these standards require by looking at http://www.nde.state.nv.us/sca/standards/index.html.) Few home school programs are designed to match this set of secular standards. No home schooler that I have spoken to ever imagined that these public school standards might be applied to home schools. When the Department of Education discovered that Churchill County had told families they could not use KONOS, Leslie James sent out another email to clarify matters. - - - - - - - - - - August 6, 2002 Home Schooling Consultants, FOLLOWING NAC and NRS: Re: NAC 392.015 "A child must be excused from compulsory attendance at public school when written evidence is provided to the board of trustees of the county school district that the child will receive equivalent instruction..." And: NRS 392.070 (1) "Attendance required by the provisions of NRS 392.040 must be excused when satisfactory written evidence is presented to the board of trustees of the school district in which the child resides that the child is receiving at home or in some other school equivalent instruction of the kind and amount approved by the state board." As I have discussed with some of you on the phone... IN REVIEWING CURRICULUM listed in the notification packet to assure that the child will receive "equivalent instruction" (aside from the curriculum on the list of "Approved Correspondence Programs" which has already been reviewed), please work with the parents to help make the decision as to whether the curriculum substantially matches the state standards, rather than automatically telling parents they "can't use a curriculum not on the list of approved programs." They CAN use a curriculum not on this list--as long as it matches the state standards. The district needs to have someone familiar with the state standards who can review the curriculum so that "written evidence is provided to the board of trustees of the county school district that the child will receive equivalent instruction". Options regarding review of curriculum: 1) Review a scope and sequence to make sure the standards are substantially covered. If an area looks like it is missing e.g., writing- the parent can supplement with other curriculum that matches the state standards. 2) If you can't tell that the curriculum substantially matches the state standards by looking at the scope and sequence, have the parent see if the vendor will submit a sample of the curriculum to the district for review if the parent doesn't have it yet. If you need further help in reviewing curriculum, you can consult with the curriculum consultants here at the State Department of Education... I know this is not an easy issue for districts to handle. Leslie James - - - - - - - - - - The situation is serious but not immediately dangerous. No school district has threatened prosecution over this matter--yet. Clark County, the largest school district in the state, has a "Notification of Intent Form" that does not even ask which curriculum a parent uses unless they choose an approved correspondence course. With school starting in just two weeks and approximately 3,000 home school students in the district, Clark County's officials may be as astonished at this development as the home schoolers are. Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or we shall most assuredly all hang separately." Hanging together doesn't mean everyone agrees on everything: in Nevada, home schoolers differ on many issues. The vast majority of home schoolers agree, however, that their home schools are not subject to Academic Standards designed for public schools. It's time for home school families to rally together for freedom. Pass this message on! If you got this message from a friend, you can sign up for your own elerts at the HSLDA website (www.HSLDA.org). Yours for liberty, Scott W. Somerville HSLDA Staff Attorney {{JoinAd}} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The HSLDA E-lert Service is a service of: Home School Legal Defense Association P.O. 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