4 things every school committee looks at when approving your home school proposal.The court systems have recognized that certain factors may be considered by the superintendent or school committee in helping to decide whether or not to approve a home school proposal. The factors that are considered are as follows:
1. The proposed curriculum that you decide to show, the length of the homeschool year and the number of hours of instruction in each of the proposed subjects
2. The competency of the parents who are to teach the children
3. Parental and student access to the textbooks, workbooks, and other instructional aids that are to be used by the children and to the lesson plans and teaching manuals to be used by the parents
4. A form of assessment of the children so that the system can be sure that the educational progress and the attainment of minimum standards are up to par
Practical Application of Guidelines
Before you begin submitting anything to your school district, it is a good idea to talk to other local homeschoolers in your area. You can probably find someone by contacting a support group near you. While the statutes for homeschooling do not specify that a homeschooling plan needs to be submitted annually in every area, most towns expect annual plans.
Guideline 1: School officials may consider the subjects the child will study, the length of the homeschool year, and the hours that these kids will be taught. While some school officials may consider hours of instruction in each subject, they may not dictate the exact way in which the subjects will be taught.
Subjects the child will study:
First of all, you will have to consider the lists of the core subjects such as mathematics, science and technology, history and social science, English, foreign languages and the arts. Other subjects that may be included in your child’s area of study may include orthography, reading, writing, the English language and grammar, geography, arithmetic, religion, drawing, music, the history and constitution of the United States, the duties of citizenship, health education, gym and good behavior.
To follow these guidelines parents can list the subjects that they plan to cover when drawing up their proposal. A simple list of them should be good enough, since the school is not allowed to dictate the manner in which you teach anyway.
You may want to use key phrases or paragraphs that will be of help to convey the flexible nature of homeschooling:
Topics that will be placed in the education proposal may include, but do not have to be limited to, the following:
[Child's name here] will use a developmentally-appropriate and integrated curriculum. We will plan her learning process together, based on her interests, so that while it is impossible to state in advance which specific topical areas we will cover, we expect to cover the following subjects during this school year:
We will be practicing learner-directed educational skills; [child's name]'s course of study is based upon his/her specific interests. His/her range of interests is quite broad and his/her learning will be created accordingly. [Child’s name]'s education is to be holistic as well since learning often occurs in the context of normal life experiences. His/her school year will extend 365 days a year for this reason.
The curriculum is a statement of things [child's name] has learned and, based on that, of things s/he will continue learning throughout the year. Topics have a tendency to mix together and activities and discussions during the year will reflect a wider picture than what can be expressed in a list of isolated subjects previously mentioned.
Of course, if you are following a boxed or self-made curriculum for your child, you can simply outline what you plan to cover for the year, while still allowing for some level of flexibility in your plan. If you do not want to write an outline, you can create a photocopy of the table of contents from the curriculum instead.
Length of the homeschool year: Cities and towns are obligated to operate the public schools for a minimum of 180 days. However, it does not go so far as to state that the length of a homeschool's year MUST be the same as a public school year. However, you must ensure that your homeschool year will meet or beat 180 days.
Many homeschool families choose to write that their homeschool year extends 365 days a year, which means that it easily exceeds the minimum 180 days of a public school because of the life lessons that are often taught. In any case, you should make a note that the length of your homeschool year will be somewhere between 180 days and 365 days a year.
Hours of instruction per subject:
Parents may want to calculate the hours of instruction based on the way in which they homeschool, which does not have to be an exact replicate of what the public school's offering, however it should equal it in how thorough and effective it is.
You should keep in mind that the definition of instruction is a loose one and includes such activities as independent study, field trips, computer-aided learning, and presentations by people that are not teachers. Also, it helps for you to know that following a schedule is not an important consideration in a home school where the use of time is different.
Some parents choose to write that they will meet or exceed the 900 (elementary) or 990 (secondary) minimum hours of teaching. If your local school officials insist on your adding more detail than this, you will want to submit an estimate of hours per subject per year. But when you do this you will want to preface it by including a statement such as “Because of the flexible nature of homeschooling, the following is just an estimate of the hours of instruction spent per subject”
If you are interested in knowing how the public schools allocate their time, schools have curriculum guides that define how much time will be spent on each subject per week. These guides should be made available to you upon request. Schools are not authorized to go so far as to ask for an hourly or daily schedule.
If the school official is insisting on an hourly daily or weekly schedule, you will want to accompany the above with this quote, which was conducted by from Brunelle: “While following a schedule may be an important consideration in a public school where preexisting schedules need to be maintained and coordinated, the perception and use of time in a home school are different. The plaintiffs can observe and accommodate variations (from child to child, subject to subject, day to day) in the learning process and teach through a process that paces each student.”
Guideline 2: School officials may ask you for information that pertains to the academic credentials or qualifications of the parents who will be teaching the children. Certification would not necessarily be required for parents under a home school proposal.
Let me just tell you that parents do not need to have college or advanced academic degrees. All the laws state clearly that what is needed for homeschooling is that teachers shall be 'of competent ability and good morals. For example, if you have a criminal history on record, you would not be deemed worthy to teach a child.
In order for parents to comply with this standard they can include one of the following in their education plan:
• I am of competent ability and good morals for teaching my child.
• Summarize your educational credentials, certifications etc.
• Schools are not authorized to ask for the qualifications of everyone who will be teaching your child such as speakers etc.
Guideline 3: School officials may consider teaching materials, but only if it is to determine subject and grade levels of the children being taught. School officials may not use this access as a means to dictate the manner in which the subjects will be taught. There are actually some lessons that are considered intangible to school systems.
For example, travel, community service, visits to educationally enriching facilities like museums and places like this, and meeting with various resource people, can provide important learning experiences apart from the four corners of a text or workbook that can make homeschooling more rewarding for parent and child.
In order for you to be able to follow this guideline properly: You can write in your educational plan, that you will be using a variety of materials and resources, whereas you will be providing a list to be made available to the school department upon request.
Or, you can list the books and other resources that you will ensure that they will have available to them. If you are using a pre-set curriculum, then you can list the books and resources you will be following from that. If your school insists on getting more detail, photocopying the table of contents of a couple of key books will probably be good enough.
If after trying one or more of the above suggestions, you find that a school official insists on actually seeing the books and materials, you could point out that your plan includes making use of such intangible resources, and that the internet and the public library are accessible to anyone, where you can find the information easily.
It is all really about how best to define access in this context. You need to remember that approval can only be conditioned on requirements that are absolutely necessary to the State interest in making sure that all of the children will be educated properly.
Since most of the schools feel that a list of resources meets their need for access to teaching materials, and since some of them are happy with far less than that, it would be very hard difficult to argue that physical access is needed.
Some of these resources that you can use are:
• Encyclopedias
• Dictionaries
• Atlases
• reference books and materials (such as textbooks, field guides, timelines,
globes, maps, etc.)
• newspapers
• Magazines
• Library loan books, tapes, magazines, etc.
• educational games
• educational computer software and on-line services
• calculating and measuring tools and utensils
• arts & crafts supplies
• writing supplies
• musical instruments
• audio-visual equipment and materials
• religious materials
• science lab equipment
• sports equipment
• community resources (such as museums, theatres, sports programs,
• private lessons, volunteer opportunities)
Guideline 4: School officials and parents have to agree on a way to host the evaluations that may include any of the following approaches:
• standardized testing,
• progress report,
• dated work samples.
• Other methods of assessment, if they are agreed upon by parents and school officials, are also allowed.
You need to choose the one form of assessment that best fits your own individual style of homeschooling, either testing, progress report or dated work samples. If you add a line such as, An annual progress report/dated work sample/standardized test results will be submitted upon request, as was mentioned earlier; it is a good way to just be sure. If they don't ask, you don't need to submit anything.
Some families prefer to use different methods of assessment for different children.
Once you have submitted a plan that includes information that is outlined by the guidelines, you can rest assured that you have already fulfilled your responsibility to homeschool.
From here you can either hand deliver your plan to the school and ask for a receipt, or mail it certified mail, by requesting a return receipt. It is not unheard of for schools to lose your paperwork, so it's good to have a copy of what you have sent to them, as well as the proof that you have submitted it.
Depending on what town you live in, you may or may not hear anything from your school once you've submitted your plan. If it is important to you to receive approval in writing, you can include a sentence such as, “I would appreciate a letter of approval from you” in your cover letter.
This type of proof of homeschooling can be used to get special discounts at various stores and museums, as well as student discounts for use of the MBTA.
If the home school proposal is rejected for some reason, the superintendent or the school committee must provide you with details of the reasons for the decision. The parents must then be given an opportunity to correct or change their proposal as a means of fixing its inadequacies.
However, if the parents start the education of their children at home in spite of the school committee's refusal to approve their proposal, the burden of proof under the laws, moves to the school committee as a way to show that the instruction that was outlined in the home school proposal fails to meet with the standards of the public schools in the same town.
Basically, if the school sees a problem with your plan, they are obligated to give you the opportunity to fix it. If, having submitted a plan, you commence homeschooling without approval, the school will then assume that the burden to show that your plan does not meet their standards of that in the public schools.
In the unlikely event that the school wants to take you to court over the matter, the huge costs that are incurred for them to do it along with the fact that they would have to bear the burden of proof to show your plan is not adequate would most likely be a detriment to them, especially given the chance that a judge would recommend an quick and easy resolution to the situation.
