School District Insists Family Use its Inaccurate Notification Form

One of our Colorado member families forwarded us a letter that they received from their school district after they submitted their notice of intent to homeschool form. The letter indicated that the family must send further information in addition to the form that they already submitted. Enclosed in the letter was the school district’s “Annual Notification of Established Home Study” form. The district’s form required additional information, such as the child’s grade, birth date, and age, which are not required by the Colorado homeschool statute. The form also stated that it “must be completed.”

The family had used the Home School Legal Defense Association notification form, which was developed to comply with the standards set out in the Colorado homeschool statutes. HSLDA’s form requires no more and no less of what the statute requires.

HSLDA Attorney Chris Klicka responded to the district’s letter on behalf of the family. Klicka’s letter made it clear that the family was not required to fill out another form, and that the form the district provided required was not in accordance with the law.

Klicka’s letter stated that any information beyond the “name, age, place of residence, and number of hours of attendance” is not required by law. He further explained, that even if requested to do so, homeschool families are not obligated to include extraneous information in their notice of intent to homeschool. In addition, Klicka’s letter pointed out that the Colorado homeschool statute requires homeschooling parents to submit the required information, but nothing in the law requires that a family use the district's particular form.

Once the district received HSLDA’s letter, they no longer hassled the family, but accepted the family’s original notice of intent form.