Gel Pen Learning

In the book “The 12 Week Year,” the authors observe that the last quarter of the year tends to have much higher productivity and sales volume. Why? Because of deadlines.

The public school district is no different.

The letters demanding missing reports by order of the mandated reporters tasked with verifying “educational neglect” have been hitting mailboxes all over the state, whether the parents receiving them deserve them or not.

I can put my hand on the Bible and swear that every single time I’ve received one of these letters, the people making the demands already had in their possession the paperwork for which they seek.

Don’t get me wrong; there are absolutely people who do not submit paperwork to the school. There are people who need to be reminded that there are reporting obligations in New York if you are going to homeschool. But from talking to parents, I’m discovering that many receive letters that are harshly worded, making demands for things that the school is not entitled to and evoking the nuclear option for compliance.

School districts should not be threatening to involve CPS over clerical issues, and parents not submitting reports is a clerical issue.

It’s extremely frustrating that school administrators are tasked with enforcing homeschool compliance when the most common fallacy they make is the “Appeal to Ignorance” fallacy. Essentially, they claim that because you didn’t provide a piece of paper as proof of education, education didn’t happen, and therefore, they are justified in getting the government involved further. That’s so dumb.

If You Received a Letter, Here Are My Tips and Tricks for Navigating the Mess Without Losing Your Mind:

Don’t panic.

This sounds worse than it is. Again, they are demanding paper, not blood, so there’s no reason to have a panic attack. You need to be clear-headed for the next part.

Check your records.

Maybe you didn’t send the report. I did that one year myself. I sent the report to a .com address and not the .org. I just resent it and apologized.

If you sent the paperwork out and have proof of it, you have some options:

• You can resend it and move on.
• You can tell them to check their records again.

Personally, it depends on how they handle the situation as to whether I will just resend or make them work for it. For example, I received an email from the school telling me that I had never submitted my paperwork, and then they quoted Section 100.10 to me. They sent me this on the same thread as the reports they were missing. Additionally, they had sent me an approval/compliance statement between receiving my reports and sending me the report demand. My response was, “You stated the reports were in compliance on April 17th; scroll up in this thread to reprint the reports. Thank you.”

Be Professional.

As tempting as it may be to immediately throw down the HSLDA card on the table, yell, call them incompetent, and throw some f-bombs, please, let’s not.

Admittedly, this one is difficult for me. I can be extremely sarcastic when provoked. I am also very direct, which is often perceived as rude. What I do not do is get angry, swear, or threaten. I have to live in this district, and I still intend to homeschool. I don’t want to be on a first-name basis with the administrators of my district, but I don’t want to be on bad terms with them either. We need to be able to work together.

Especially if they are the party in the wrong. Let them be the bad guy. Let them threaten, escalate, or straight-up ignore you. That’s evidence for the next step.

Escalate Accordingly.

While the HSLDA should not be your first move, don’t be afraid to use your membership if you have one. If you cannot work with your school district and good faith has run out, then you need to escalate.

Some people are very anti-conflict. I get it. I just want to leave you with this thought: if you are going through it, there are probably five other families going through it as well. Wouldn’t you want one of them to stand up on your behalf? You might have to be the parent who doesn’t back down from bureaucratic pressure so that everyone else can homeschool in peace.

Share Your Story.

The reason why these letters feel so scary is that they feel personal. If we all shared our stories, I would venture to say that we would feel empowered to advocate for ourselves more often. If you and I lived in the same district and I told you that I received a letter, but when I called the school, I learned from the secretary that they send them out to EVERYONE, would you be upset? Or would you roll your eyes at the absolute waste of resources and time on everyone’s part because a bunch of administrative secretaries can’t be bothered to create a spreadsheet and keep it updated during the year? I mean, it’s a simple filter and a mail merge; how hard can it be?

Here’s My Story.

While I’ve outlined this on TikTok over the past couple of days, I received a letter in the mail the other day.

It is for my daughter, who is 18.

She also has her GED.

This is the fifth time we’ve had this conversation.

They are now escalating it to educational neglect. Why? Because despite:

• submitting this statement and receiving a compliance email about it:

Having successfully completed the 11th grade and reaching the age of majority on August 11, [redacted] is no longer subject to the compulsory education requirements under New York State Education Law. Accordingly, home instruction reporting obligations are concluded.

• Asked the high school if there were forms that needed to be filled out.
• Informing the man who called me in December of the same information and getting assurance that I would not receive any other calls or letters.
• The NYSED issued her a GED, and according to the website, the NYSED has to submit her transcript to the school district since she was a homeschooler and younger than 19.
• Asking on three separate occasions in writing how students who are homeschooled and beyond compulsory age get off the reporting rosters.
• Responding with entire email threads and documentation of all the above, and explicitly asking how to make this stop…

The administrators in my school district continue to demand paperwork, ignore my emails, and go into meetings when I call.

No one should have to go through this. Not me. Not you.