On October 30, 1995, Mary Ann Nobers, the Deputy Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education issued a Basic Education Circular (BEC #8-95) to school districts on the subject of "Age Limits for School Attendance" covering school districts' responsibilities for children who are over 21, and school districts' interpretations of the compulsory school age when children must either begin school or file home education program affidavits. This BEC would negatively impact homeschoolers in three ways:
1. Slightly Lowers Compulsory School Age. Previously the Department of Education held that a student turning eight during the school year did not have to enter school or file a home education program affidavit until the beginning of the next school semester. This circular would change the Department's position to one where students would have to enter school or their parents file a home education affidavit by their 8th birthday.
2. Places New Entrants in First Grade. Previously if a child above age 6 woullld enter school, the student would be placed by the school at a grade level appropriate to his or her ability. This BEC would substitute a bureaucratic mandate that students entering school at age 8 be placed in first grade. (Thus an 8-year-old child working at a third grade level woulld be sentenced to two years of wasted time.)
3. Urges School Districts to Contact Parents of Seven-Year-Olds. Although there is no basis for such action in law or regulation, the BEC would urge school districts to contact parents to enroll their chilldren at age 7. Specificallly it urged districts to "notify parents of children who are not yet enrolled and are seven years old of the... [school] code and the school district calendar... [and] encourage, not require, a parent to enroll their soon to be eight year old child." We antipated that such contacts would be perceived by homeschoolers as attempts to intimidate them.
This BEC sent our Liaison Committee into high geer. We met together by conference call on November 12th and came up with a plan of action. Our first step was to bring this BEC and its problems to the attention of Gov. Ridge's people who now lead the PA Dept. of Education. We hoped that the BEC was issued by career bureaucrats without the Ridge Administration being aware of its implications. Our second step, if necessary, would be to ask our State Representative and State Senator to write or call the Department of Education.
Keep in mind that BEC's are not law or regulation. The danger is that they do strongly influence the behavior of school districts. It is likley that if this BEC were not changed, a school district would take a homeschool family to court for not filing an affidavit on their child's 8th birthday. The HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) is prepared to defend one of their member families in such a case. They have long held that the home education affidavit doees not have to be filed until the beginning of the school year after the child turns 8. Such a court case would finally determine just when the affidavit must be filed. In the meantime, this BEC would probably result in many conflicts between school districts and homeschooling families.
In Issue #53 of the PA Homeschoolers we gave the phone number of the Office of School Services (717-787-4860) which people could call to obtain a copy of the BEC and invited them to call someone on our Liaison Committee to ask for an update on the current situation and action plan. The following members of the committee were listed:
The Liaison committee met together by conference call on November 12. Among the business at the meeting we edited and decided to send (and FAX) a letter that I had written to Greg White at the Department of Education. We also approved a letter which Dee Black (HSLDA) had written and was prepared to send to Mary Ann Nobers at the Department.
Our letter received a quick response. A few days later we received a phone reply that Greg White had assigned one of his assistants to look into the matter and by the end of November he called to say that all of the parts of the BEC which we objected to would be withdrawn. In December, Mary Ann Nobers issued a repacement circular (BEC #17-95) which eliminated all of the parts that we had objected to, and more. The replacement circular only discusses school districts' responsibilities for children who are over 21, and says nothing at all about the beginning school age! Praise the Lord!
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