Homeschool Mandates - A TOS Blog Cruise

The Old Schoolhouse hosts a TOS Blog Cruise.  Each week there is a topic introduced for TOS Crew members to write on.  This will be the last Blog Cruise post until the near year as the TOS Blog Cruise is docking for the holiday season.  :)

This week's topic is: What are the homeschooling requirements in your state and how do you deal with them?

Well after learning a lot more about other state requirements I have to state how thankful I am that the state of Wisconsin is super easy to homeschool in.  What what I hear, it is not the EASIEST state but it is pretty easy.

The meat of our law statutes is this:

specifies that a home-based private educational program must provide "… at least 875 hours of instruction each school year." In addition, the program must provide a "… sequentially progressive curriculum of fundamental instruction in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and health." The statutes contain no express authority for any agency or school district to monitor home-based private educational programs or to verify the hours of instruction provided or the use of a sequential curriculum.

So essentially I fill out the required PL-1206 with the State each year and legally I have to be left alone.  This form is now electronic instead of a triplicate form that used to have to be requested and then mailed back, so I merely log onto the website and type in my answers.

There is a time frame to submit this form.  The form asks for the number of children in each grade level who are 6 years and above.  They merely need a number of children in each age group and my promise that I will teach a minimum of 875 hours in the year.

No names, no curriculum, no attendance required, just a pledge to teach the required time.

In addition to that it is illegal at this time for the state or a school district to ask any questions or request that I show proof of anything I do in our homeschool.  They may not verify my number of hours taught, they may not ask about my curriculum, they may not investigate at all.

I am an overachiever.  I have successfully battled and won (usually) perfectionism but I've not won the battle with overachieving.  In our homeschool life this boils down to me being a paranoid pack rat.  I plan.  I keep records (despite the legal people out there telling me not to).  I ask friends in the schools what their children are using for curriculum and what activities they do.  I OVER plan.  I OVER strategize.  I OVER document.  I feel like my curriculum choices are much more demanding and stringent than the school district in which I live.   Yet because I am able to do 1:1 and 2:1 teaching I feel like my children fly through what I plan for them and so on the days when I feel like we just need a day off......we take it.

Despite my over planning I am one who has goals that read "Work thru XYZ book progressing at a nice pace."  I do not look at a book and divide the number of chapters by the number of weeks we have.  I am SO thankful that I am not required to submit lesson plans or quarterly/annual goals.   We work and we progress and I will NOT tell my family that we are *behind* because I KNOW we are progressing at a comfortable yet challenging pace for each child and in my homeschooling world that is PERFECT.

How does it work for you?  Tell me about your state requirements and how you work them.  Or leave me a link to a post about this topic on your blog.

This Blog Cruise posts on TOS Website on the evening of December 20th.  After that time feel free to read about how other TOS members deal with their state requirements at THIS LINK.  :)