Homeschool

A letter of statement of intent to homeschool your child is required by state law in many states.  I think there are a few states where you don’t have to send a letter of intent to homeschool to the local school district.  They might be Alaska and or Texas and I don’t know of any others.  Every state is different.  The letter of intent to homeschool is just informing your local school district that you intend to not send your children to school but to homeschool them instead.  Usually I think you don’t have to send a letter of intent to homeschool until your child is in first grade, or seven years old, something like that.  Looking up a states homeschool law requirements is easy online. 

Sending in a letter of intent is very easy.  Many of your local homeschool organizations will offer a simple one page form for you to use to send in.  My family does not use a form at all.  We simply type up a brief letter stating we are going to homeschool, what the kids names and birth dates are, immunization information, testing information, we happen to both have bachelors degrees, so we add that too.  Although I personally feel having a bachelor’s degree makes no difference to homeschooling.  Its just a status thing and can keep the authorities off your back.  But that’s another post, for another time. 

What is required information on letters of intent vary from state to state too.  Some state school districts require by law proof of parent’s high school diploma, and college diploma.  Usually you have to state how you are going to have your child tested and what test you will use and what monitor.  Proof of up to date immunization records are usually required also with the letter of intent.  Usually homeschool families are required by state law to turn in a letter of intent to homeschool every fall within the first month or two of school starting.  My family almost always has ours in about a week or two before school starts.

How do I feel about having to send in a letter of intent every year.  Personally I don’t feel its any of the government’s business if I intend to homeschool my child or not.  Or even what school I’d be sending them to if I were to send them to private school.  Which I would do before I’d ever send them to a government school.  Its no more the government’s business how and where my children learn than it would be what daycare I send them to, or what churches we go to, or what restaurants we eat at, or what college my children might attend, you get the point.  I think the whole letter of intent to homeschool thing is about government control over families, especially their children.  It has nothing to do with learning.

When we make our laws and educational policies primarily for the parents who don’t care, instead of for those who do, those laws are backwards. We urge that the burden of proof be on the state to show which mothers and fathers are not doing their job.
~ Dr. Raymond Moore