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| Date: From: Subject: | 6/23/2005 5:07:50 PM Home School Legal Defense Association Virginia--Prince William County School Board Abolishes 3-day Waiting |
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====================================================================== From the HSLDA E-lert Service... ====================================================================== June 23, 2005 Virginia--Prince William County School Board Abolishes 3-day Waiting Period Dear HSLDA member or friend: Last night the Prince William County school board abolished a never-enforced but occasionally problematic regulation requiring families to wait 3 days before removing their children from public school in order to provide home instruction. Last week I learned that the Prince William County School Board was scheduled to vote to change their homeschool regulations. The change was on the "consent agenda," which meant that it would be voted on with no discussion, along with a dozen other non-controversial issues. At my request, the school board staff faxed me a copy of the proposal as soon as it was publicly available. As I examined it, I found that it made 3 significant changes. One of the changes was positive and two were negative. The positive change concerned the removal of the preposterous language that made it appear that families had to wait 3 days before starting to homeschool. HSLDA has consistently advised our members to ignore this unlawful policy, and no family has ever been prosecuted for ignoring it (to our knowledge), but it has been occasionally used to harass families. The first negative change removed the flexible filing period for families in transition. Under state law, families who start homeschooling during the year, or move into the school district, are allowed the flexibility of filing their notice of intent to homeschool "as soon as practicable." This is a good rule because these families in transition are dealing with many issues, and it can be easy to miss a deadline. The proposed regulation abolished the "as soon as practicable" flexible deadline and replaced it with a hard and fast "five school day" deadline. This contradicted state law and could have hurt families. The second negative change would have required families to submit an additional notice. State law requires families to file their notice of intent with the superintendent. The proposed regulation, however, would require families to notify "the base school" of their intention to homeschool. In order to comply with state law families would still need to notify the superintendent, but to satisfy the regulation they would also need to notify the base school. Therefore, families would be faced with providing 2 notices rather than 1! On Thursday I called the attorney for the school board to explain my concerns. She understood them. On Friday we talked again. Based on my concerns, she said she would recommend that the board remove it from the consent agenda so it could be revised to remove the negative changes. On Monday, I spoke with Amy Wilson, the local homeschool mom who, with a group of like-minded homeschool parents, deserves the credit for bringing the board to the point of abolishing the 3-day waiting period. Amy understood my concerns about the two negative changes. We worked together to develop language we could jointly submit to the board Wednesday evening. On Tuesday, I had a conversation with school board member Don Richardson, who has been supportive of homeschool families. He agreed that the 3-day waiting period should be removed, and also agreed that the flexible filing deadline for families in transition should be preserved, and that families should not be required to submit 2 notices of intent. On Wednesday, Amy Wilson and I finalized consensus language to fix the defective proposal and presented it to board member Don Richardson before the meeting. At the board meeting last night, during the time for public comment, I stood up and explained what HSLDA is and our mission and explained that HSLDA and the group with Amy Wilson had reached a consensus on how the language should read. Board Member Don Richardson acknowledged that the proposal was no longer on the consent agenda. He then submitted a motion to make two changes to the regulations. The first was to allow homeschool families to take AP and PSAT tests at the public schools, to line up with a recent change in state law. The second was to remove the one troublesome sentence that required the 3-day waiting period. Two board members, Mr. Latin and Chairperson Beauchamp, did not want to make even these non-controversial changes last night because the board's primary attorney had indicated she wanted to offer some additional analysis, but was unable because she was on vacation. These two board members made it clear, however, that they were not opposed to the substance of Mr. Richardson's motion. After some spirited discussion as to whether the board should wait for additional input from their primary lawyer (one of the school board's other attorneys was already present) or take care of the long-running issue at once, the issue was called. The motion passed 6 to 2, with the only opposing votes coming from Beauchamp and Latin. As of this morning, the 3-day waiting period in Prince William County has dropped into the dustbin of history, where it should have gone long ago. And this was accomplished without homeschool families losing any freedom thanks to fast cooperative work among many people over the last several days. Over 320 homeschool families are current members of HSLDA in Prince William County. It is our joy to serve them in this way. We hope we continue to earn their confidence. Sincerely, Scott Woodruff HSLDA Staff Attorney ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -> How many news articles did you read this morning over your oatmeal? We live in a world where concise information presented at the right time can make a big difference in the outcome of important legislative efforts. Yet it's tough to keep up with all the issues that affect you. HSLDA does this for you in the areas that affect your homeschool. Our emails and website enable you to take quick, decisive action. Please consider becoming a part of this team. More reasons to join HSLDA... http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=1923 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ====================================================================== The HSLDA E-lert Service is a service of: Home School Legal Defense Association P.O. 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