One Size Does Not Fit All: Make Your Voice Count

For close to 40 years home schoolers have enjoyed a simple communication process between themselves and their Education Service District. Our legal obligation has been to notify the ESD of our intent to home school and provide them with three essential pieces of information:

·         Your child’s and your name along with your address.

·         Your child’s birth date.

·         The name of the school your child is presently attending, or last attended, or if the child has not attended school, the name of the public school district in which the child resides.

This obligation is spelled out clearly in both statute and administrative rule.

And it’s potentially about to change.

House Bill 2508 establishes a statewide computer data system for K-12 student records. It will be used by Education Service Districts (ESDs), which hold state data on homeschooled students.

The system will be able to track the following:

*          Student name and state identification number;

*          Student demographic information;

*          Student statewide assessment data;

*          Student course completion data;

*          Student education records;

HB 2508 was just passed out of committee with a recommendation to the Oregon House to vote yes. Appeals were made to the committee during the hearing to exclude home schoolers from being required to participate in this data collection. Unfortunately, committee members refused to make this very simple edit to the bill.  

As the saying goes, “One size does not fit all.” The ESD does not need to know what curriculum you’re using, does not need to keep additional educational records on your student, does not need to compile additional demographic data on your child. That information may be useful for public schools but it is not relevant as far as the home school population goes. For the last four decades, the simple submission of an achievement test when required has been adequate. 

We strongly recommend you contact your state representative immediately and express your opposition to HB 2508. When communicating, resist being combative but be clear in your reasons why a “no vote” is the right vote.

Feel free to forward this email to others in the home school community.

Thanks for reading and your partnership in home schooling!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE

To read HB 2508 click here

To read public testimony at the hearing click here

To find your state representative click here

To sign up for testing through Basic Skills click here