Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Another homeschooling question - state compliance

Homeschooling seems to be quite a hot topic here right now so it got me thinking little more about how we will approach it if we decide to go that route. DS4.9 will be starting public K in the fall but we need to have a backup option for him due to health issues and potential behavior / boredom related problems. But DS3.2 is the one whom I really have in mind when I think homeschooling as he's the one more advanced.

So, my question is state law related (Illinois in our case). While the rules here are fairly relaxed as far as I can tell, I am not sure how to approach the topic of acceleration and what we would cover each year? This is what the law says:

"Home-schooling in Illinois is considered to be a form of private education. Parents who choose to educate their children at home are under a legal obligation to meet the minimum requirements stated in Illinois’ Compulsory Attendance Law (Section 26-1 of the Illinois School Code). Parents who choose to educate their children at home are obligated to teach their children “…the branches of education taught to children of corresponding age and grade in the public schools” and they are further obligated to offer instruction in these core courses in the English language. The “branches of education” include language arts; mathematics; biological and physical sciences; social sciences; fine arts; and physical development and health."

And then:

"The regional superintendent of schools for the student’s county of residence has first-line responsibility for investigating reports of noncompliance with the compulsory attendance laws found in Article 26 of the Illinois School Code. In fulfilling this legal responsibility, regional superintendents may expect the parents who seek to educate their children at home to establish, when necessary, that they are providing instruction that is at least commensurate with the standards established for public schools. With evidence that home instruction in a specific instance does not satisfy the requirements of state law, the regional superintendent may request the regional or school district truant officer to investigate to see that the child is in compliance with the compulsory attendance law. Truant officers are peace officers empowered to conduct investigations, enforce the compulsory attendance law and to refer matters of noncompliance to the courts. A parent who allows a child to attend a home school that does not comply with the standard of Section 26-1, as interpreted by Levisen, allows the child to be truant and can be found to have committed a Class C misdemeanor."

... all came from this source http://www.isbe.state.il.us/homeschool/

Reading all that, it seems simple, yet I'm lost and scared in a way. Does this mean I can teach "anything" as long as it fits within the "branches" that are studied in the public schools? Or Would the safer option be taking the standards for each grade from the school district website and covering those first and then working on anything we want to? But that wouldn't make any sense since we will need to heavily accelerate in some areas for DS3.2 who at this point is reading on about 1st grade level and his math skills are close to K/1st and his world and US geography and biology knowledge is getting quite "out there" as well.

Should I get someone from the school department come investigate if we're doing what we're supposed to, would I simply show them that instead of say 1st grade Language Arts we are working on 3rd grade, etc.?

Same with the whole "compulsory attendance" requirement. There is no set number of hours that homeschooled kids need to have every day. Yet there is compulsory attendance. If DS can cover in 1 or 2 hours what otherwise would take all day in a B&M school, would that count for full attendance? It seems to be such a gray area and there isn't really any information out there that would make this any clearer for me.

Plus, DS3.2 is clearly a 2E child and while some areas he'll breeze right through, there may be some areas that I may have problems convincing him to work on (he's the child that the school district wants to put in an Autism classroom).

So, I guess my question is, those of you who homeschool, how do you go about these laws and regulations and requirements?

It looks to me like the answers to your questions are right there in the site you linked to:


So basically, you have wide latitude (it even uses those words in the next paragraph) in determining what meets your child's needs. If your DS needs 1-2 hours, then he can have 1-2 hours.

It seems the state of IL does require homeschoolers to renew their registration with the state each year, but does not require them to provide any documentation that demonstrates what the child has done the year before. Here in LA, they require a small portfolio of the child's work, or standardized assessment test results. I would interpret that as meaning that nobody will be looking over your shoulder in IL unless there's a reason to investigate. For example, a pediatrician might call in a complaint to the child welfare department if a 9yo couldn't read simple instructions.

It would be prudent to keep a portfolio of your children's recent work on hand, just in case anyone ever asked. And there are places where you can get standardized testing... our DD8 just did two of them. Nobody is going to argue with test results... we just used a homeschool year and assessment testing to grade-skip our DD into the same public school district that adamantly refused to entertain the idea for the last three years.

Also, we frequently refer to our state DoE's "Grade Level Expectations" as a reference for the minimum requirements our DD should be working on, to make sure we're not missing anything. DD is, of course, free to explore as far beyond the minimums as she likes. It looks like IL calls them "Performance Descriptors", and describes them in unnecessarily confusing terms... I feel for you. The "Classroom Assessments" look a lot more user-friendly, though.
http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ils/html/descriptors.htm

thank you!

Actually, Illinois does not even require the registration. There is a form available but it is not mandatory (that's the only thing in all this that I'm sure of).

I think I'm just worried (in the back of my mind) that the school district itself might cause us problems because they are the ones insisting on DS3.2 being in special ed classes. I know they mean well but it's to the point of me getting quite irritated by it. On the other hand, I am sure our family doctor as well as most of DS's therapists we've seen in the last 12 months support the idea of him being homeschooled.

I've been trying to find a homeschooling group in our area but they all seem to be in other counties or strongly religiously affiliated. Hopefully if I find one, I can learn the ins and outs of things from someone there.

If you have physician-- especially specialist-physician-- support for your decision, then my guess is that you're more or less bulletproof on that score.

I know about those kinds of worries, though.

MK, I'm going to PM you some info.

thanks for the heads up I forget to check the PMs because of the always flashing ikon and then I find messages a week later!

I have this nagging fear of the school district reporting us to the social services if we don't send the kids to school! I shouldn't have to feel like this, right?

I agree with what Dude says. I think you've got a lot of latitude too. There are many ways to cover English, math, science, history, etc. No one says math needs to go in the sequential order that the public school uses or even that you cannot accelerate if warranted. As an example, you could cover astronomy for science rather than the standard Earth Science.

I also would say you can take a deep breath and try to relax. Yes, it's prudent to keep a portfolio or some kind of log for learning, but it's unlikely anyone is going to come after you if you skip over grade 1 standards for grade 3 standards, for instance, or dare I say with attendance. It's not like public school kids get docked or compensated in hours for fire drills or pep rallies when they should be diagramming sentences in English.

I don't know about IL, but kindergarten is NOT federally mandated. It's my understanding that homeschooling does not 'officially' begin until compulsory schooling starts. This means you don't need to submit any paperwork until you're child is about to begin first grade. Of course, double check.

As with homeschooling, some parents feel more comfortable sticking to a structured regime that does not differ terribly from the public schools. Others veer off or do a combination of structure/unstructure. Some go completely unstructured and unschool. There's a wide range today; and some people go back and forth with what they do. You will find your way and what works best for you and your family. Try to find some homeschool/unschool groups in your area and pick their brains.

There are books, websites, etc. that may be useful so the process doesn't seem so daunting and intimidating. Joanne Calderwood's book, Self-Propelled Advantage, and Cafi Cohen's book, Homeschooling: The Teen Years (which is a bit dated now) may be helpful to see how other parents document, structure or unstructure learning, etc.

A 2e expert last June/Jul recommended that my ds7 2e/pg use a general curriculum series for this year. Next week, we're doing something different because he finished the series this year. Nevertheless, I used a combination of portfolio/summary to document ds7's accelerated school work. I'm sure it was overkill, but then I'm a newbie to it .

Thanks everyone!

you all are correct. Compulsory education doesn't start until 7 years old. But there is a new law in the working right now that would change that to 6. The reason why I'm worrying about this already for DS3.2 is simple. He will be turning 4 next spring and I want to start officially / unofficially early Kindergarten with him in the fall after he turns 4 so we can be on track for a skip if we need to put him into a public school later on. There is no early entry to 1st grade in IL but starting K and 1st early homeschooling could get him on track for early 2nd grade in public. Same thing with DS4.9. He's enrolled in K for this fall but there is a good chance we'll need to pull him out, at which point we might do both K & 1st in the same year. So while it seems homeschooling is still far away in our case, it really isn't.

Not pressuring but strongly recommending. I know they mean well but they don't know DS like we do. The official recommendation is school therapy and regular special ed preschool program but he completely shuts down in therapy and doesn't communicate there at all and given how he reacts, the preschool program would be a total disaster. He is so anxious / stressed out in the school environment that he refuses to do anything, other than saying bye bye and heading for the door. So even his school therapist said that while the recommendation is such and such, she doesn't see how he'd function there and that he would need Autism classroom. Plus, the autism classroom was also mentioned at his initial IEP meeting but they knew ahead of time I was refusing to put him even in the regular special ed preschool so they didn't push the issue further at that point. BUT the speech therapist herself, while working for the school, is a homeschooling mom! And unofficially hinted that she can see why I would want to homeschool him. I wrote about it in another one of my posts where we had to pull him out of the school therapy he had been in for 5 weeks because it was really negatively affecting his behavior. He left the therapy angry at everyone, hitting, screaming, crying ... we quit about 4 weeks ago and he's back to his happy funny self. Yet of course, I got a letter from the special ed director mentioning them wanting DS in the preschool in the fall and holding him a spot. After I clearly explained to her quite a few times that it is not in our plans. Oh well ...