Posts Tagged ‘homeschooling parents’
Homeschooling Laws
Do You Know Homeschooling Laws for Your State?
The responsibility for education falls to the state government. All states maintain homeschooling laws either directly or indirectly. The homeschooling laws are drawn up by the states lawmakers in the state legislature and then enforced by organizations like the State Board of Education. If you really want to homeschool your children then you must be up to date on your states homeschooling laws.
Parents will find that the state laws governing homeschooling will fall into four main categories.
Attendance required courses
Record keeping and reporting
Assessment
Minimum number of hours per day and number of attendance per year
The penalties both criminal and civil are stiff to all who violate these homeschooling laws. You will find laws and penalties apply to both the parents and children.
There are a number of courses that are mandatory for students like reading, national and state government including science. Another requirement most states have is that homeschooling must be in the English Language. Another requirement in the area of record keeping and reporting is all homeschooling parents must notify the public school superintendent of their intent every year. It must include the statement that parent meet the states standards for eligibility to teach. You will need to maintain the schedule of attendance courses taught and provide reports on the children’s progress every year.
You will even find homeschooling state law requires some form of assessments. Some states require they be performed by nationally recognized testing or by a review of your child's academic work by a competent professional.
Here is how the one state sets handles its requirement in this area:
Assessments are based on a nationally standardized achievement test and they are intended to:
Be administered by a certified teacher or a person mutually agreed upon by the parents and the superintendent. It can be a person duly authorized by the publisher of the test to administer the exam also.
The purpose is intended to measure proficiency comparable with other students of the child's grade. A score at or above the 25 percentile shall be considered reasonable proficiency for the child's performance.
As an alternative to the test described above, the parents may provide a narrative written by a certified teacher, or other person mutually agreed upon by the parents and the superintendent, of a portfolio of the child's school work. Or the parents may provide an assessment agreed upon by the parents and the superintendent. The parents are responsible for all costs of the academic assessment, except the parents may have the testing done free of charge by participating in the public school testing program.
