Homeschooling Laws in Vermont and California: How They Are Connected and Why This Matters

I mentioned last week that homeschoolers in Vermont have been wrestling with the State Department of Education’s new interpretation of the recently revised Home Study statute.

I have been trying to think of a way to make this a story that is relevant to someone other than the small sub-set of Vermont homeschoolers who insist on keeping after the Dept. of Ed. to stick to the letter of the law.

There are not many of us, I’m afraid.

In fact, most HSers in Vermont are of the just do what they say and stop making trouble for the rest of us variety.

What I want to do with this post, if you will bear with me, is explain briefly what the hubbub is here in VT, tie it in to what is going on in California, and bring it all home as to why you should care about this, even if you are not a homeschooler.

In Vermont, the home study statute (that’s what it’s called here) was re-written and implemented in 2006 for the 2006-2007 school year.

One of the changes made was that a home study program (aka a family) that successfully completes two years of home study is exempt from submitting a detailed course of study (curriculum outline) at the beginning of the school year for each child.

Under the old law, we had to submit a curriculum at the beginning of the year and then submit an assessment at the end of the year, every year, for each child.

The idea of this change was to reward parents who have demonstrated that they can write a curriculum and implement it successfully two years in a row with a little reduction in paper work.

This year, the Home Study Office announced that any families that are late with their paperwork will lose their exemption, until they acquire two additional years of on time, successful home study enrollment. The deadline is Labor Day.

The problem? There is no provision in the statute for losing the exemption for late paperwork, once you earn it.

What’s worse, there is no deadline in the statute. None.

In fact, the statute says, “If a home study program intends to re-enroll a child for the following school year, a new notice under this section is required and may be submitted at any time after March 1.” [Emphasis mine]

There was mixed response from homeschoolers on this issue. Some were outraged. Others felt like it was no big deal.

After all, if your paperwork is not in by the time the local schools start, you are legally truant, so we should all get our paperwork in by that time anyway. (It’s worth noting here that truancy is not enforced by the Dept. of Ed., but a local matter.)

But I think it is a big deal when a bureaucracy operates outside the letter of the law. The bureaucracy is designed to implement the laws, not re-write them.

How does this relate to California?

There has been a lot of media coverage recently of the court decision in California that ruled homeschooling illegal.

Despite the decision of that court, homeschoolers in California are not expected to be negatively impacted by this decision, which was really a child welfare case about a specific family and not about homeschooling in general.

Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has stepped up to support the right to homeschool.

Homeschooling has never been a “legal” option in that state. It is not a statutory option for meeting the state’s compulsory attendance law, but homeschoolers register with the state as a private school and enroll only their own children.

So, if this option has been used and accepted by the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, why was the judge able to declare homeschooling illegal?

Melissa Wiley, a homeschooler and children’s book author in California, sums it up nicely on her blog, Here in the Bonny Glen.

This court’s interpretation of state education statutes is dramatically different from the interpretation applied by thousands of homeschooling families for many years, in cooperation with the state Department of Education.

Therein lies the problem.

When statutes are interpreted outside of the scope of the actual language, the people’s rights are at risk. Interpretations can change and with them the implementation of the law.

This is not the first time that homeschoolers in California have been at risk.

In 2002, then-state Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said homeschooling was illegal and that she would enforce the law.

Eastin then asked the Legislature to take up the issue. It declined.

Six months later, O’Connell took over as state schools chief and opted for a hands-off approach, directing homeschooling families to the forms required to create a private school and telling local districts that truancy was their issue.

So, the only thing keeping homeschooling legal in CA is the interpretation of the current superintendent, which can, and does, change.

This is the inherent problem with allowing bureaucrats to define the law.

In order to have our rights protected, we need to remain vigilant and ensure that our government follows its own laws consistently, regardless of who is in power.

That is why it matters when the State Department of Education institutes deadlines and penalties that are not written in the law.

This does not just apply to homeschooling. This applies to any law and to any bureaucracy that abuses its power.

Homeschoolers are not the first group of people unhappy with how laws are interpreted and enforced.

That is why we need to demand that our rights are protected in the language of the laws and not just in the intentions of the people writing them or of the people who are enforcing them at the time.

And that is why, when we don’t like the results when the law is applied, we need to change the law, not just patch it with exceptions.

(For the record, this is not a response to my own situation. I have my exemption and have not turned in “late” paperwork.)