Homeschooling Fact Check: Pre-Approval

This week we continue our Homeschooling Fact Check series in which we examine some of the most common questions we receive and some of the biggest myths about homeschooling in Massachusetts. If you have questions or topics you'd like to suggest for this series, you can email us at info@ahem.info.

Claim:

You need to get your education plan approved before withdrawing a child from school to homeschool.

Reading the Law:

The General Laws of the State of Massachusetts refer to a child who is being otherwise instructed in a manner approved in advance by the superintendent or the school committee [Mass. G.L. Chapter 76, Section 1; emphasis added]. Homeschool is not a term used in the statute. Homeschooled students fall under the category of otherwise instructed. On the other hand, Care and Protection of Charles at 338 says that: …if the parents commence the education of their children at home in the face of the school committee’s refusal to approve the parents’ homeschool proposal, the burden of proof… shifts to the school committee to show that the instruction outlined in the homeschool proposal fails to equal ‘in thoroughness and efficiency, and in the progress made therein, that in the public schools in the same town . . . ’

Verdict:

True, but complicated. Chapter 76 does require prior approval. However, Charles indicates that if a family commences homeschooling without approval, the burden of proof shifts to the school. Only a handful of families complying with Charles have ever reached the courtroom level in a dispute with the schools. In each of these few cases, the family has won. It is important to remember that once a family has submitted a plan that satisfies the guidelines outlined in Charles, that family is making a good faith effort to comply with the law, and that counts. In every Massachusetts homeschooling dispute that has made it to court that we know of dating from the late 1970s (Perchemlides, Charles, Searles, Brunelle, Ivan), the child/ren have never been ordered to attend school during the court proceedings.