Thursday, July 2, 2020

Homeschooling in Ohio



The upheaval in public schools is unbelieveable.  Are you considering homeschooling? It is incredibly easy to homeschool in Ohio.  So do not feel overwhelmed.

Below I'm going to highlight some of the Ohio Homeschool Code that take effect for the upcoming 2020-2021 school year.  These do affect EVERYONE that reports in the state of Ohio.  (***I'm not an attorney and only helping people see the changes.  Contact the HSLDA for further information or if you are having district troubles.)

Brief overview of the current requirements to homeschool in the State of Ohio:


Parents agree to:
  1. Provide 900 hours of instruction per year;
  2. Notify the superintendent every year; and (**This has changed for next year!***)
  3. Provide an assessment of the students work or standardized composite score from National Standardized Test
How the certain sections of code were changed....

§ 3301-34-01 Definitions 

  • " (E) "Superintendent" means the superintendent of schools of the city, local, or exempted village school district in which the parent resides. " 
This part has been updated to include clarification as to where you send your Notice of Intent to Homeschool.  You are to send this notification to the superintendent of the district in which you reside.  Not to an educational service center.  This will help you when the district wants you to send it elsewhere.

§ 3301-34-02 Statement of Purpose  

  • This section was deleted, but the text and meaning of what was written there was moved to Section 3301-34-03 (A), instead. See the next section.

§ 3301-34-03 Notification

  • The following bolded text was added (with most of the first paragraph coming from what used to be in Section -02, as noted above:
"3301-34-03 (A) Consistent application of procedures and practices throughout the state by superintendents and parents is essential for children receiving home education and helps to safeguard the primary right of parents to determine the appropriate education for their child(ren).   

A parent who elects to provide home education shall supply the following information to the superintendent "no later than the first week of the start of the public school building the child would attend in the school district of residence or within one week of the date on which the child begins to reside in the district or within one week from the child’s withdrawal from a school: "

Until now, there has not be a "due date" for the Notice of Intent to Homeschool that we send to the superintendent of the district that you live in.  That has now changed.  Parents must notify the school district in which they reside by the end of the first week of school.  If you pull your child during the school year, you have one week to send your Notice of Intent to Homeschool to the superintendent's office.  If you move districts, you also need to inform within one week of you moving into the new district.

There is now a "due date" attached to our Notice of Intent to Homeschool.  I know I personally shoot for the first week of August to send in our Notice of Intent.  I'm now setting our due date for August 10th.  That will get it to our district in plenty of time with certified mail.  Wouldn't it be great if everyone in Ohio got their notices sent in during that 2nd week of August??  The schools would be bombarded with thousands of pieces of mail at the same time!

Another changes is the addition of the email option for contact....
  • 3301-34-03 (A)(2) Name of parent, address, email and telephone number (email and telephone number optional); 

Email was added as an optional contact method, along with phone number.  Ohio Law states that this is optional.  The district wants an easier way to contact you with questions.  But Ohio Law states all methods of official communication should be through mail, so basically in writing.  This helps to keep a paper trail.  If we provide them with that information, some districts have not been following proper procedures.  So we do want to be careful about the amount of information that we are providing to the district in this respect.
__________________________________________

Again, these rules apply to homeschooling.  Many parents think that online schools such as OHVA, fall into the category of home schooling, but this is NOT true. In Ohio, some online schools are considered community/chartered public schools.  If the online school is out of state and you have to pay tuition, or for the curriculum, you must register as being home schooled with your resident district superintendent, this is still considered home schooling.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me... renita@krazykuehnerdays.com.  I'll be more than happy to help you out or point you in the right direction.  Also if you are on Facebook, I highly recommend you find some local homeschool moms in the groups on there!
Happy Homeschooling!!!



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