New York’s homeschooling regulation is built on a simple premise: Parents have a legal right to provide instruction at home, and school districts review the required paperwork to verify that such instruction is substantially equivalent.
This structured balance found in 8 NYCRR § 100.10 is disrupted when a school district decides that parents, as a category, cannot be trusted to administer annual assessments or prepare written narrative evaluations for their own children because they are related to them.
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This is the position taken by the Edmeston Central School District. The district has effectively said that, because parents are related to their children, they cannot be sufficiently objective to conduct the annual assessment process. Homeschooling parents are being told they may not administer a standardized test or prepare a written narrative evaluation for their children, even after a full year of compliance with the very regulation designed to establish whether their instruction is competent and substantially equivalent.
That position should concern anyone who values fairness and the rule of law.
New York’s regulation does not impose a blanket rule that annual assessments must be administered by unrelated third parties. For standardized testing, § 100.10(h) allows testing at the parents’ home or another reasonable location by a certified teacher or “another qualified person,” with the superintendent’s consent. For written narrative evaluations, the regulation allows the evaluation to be prepared by a certified teacher, a home instruction peer review panel, or “other person,” chosen by the parent with the superintendent’s consent.
The New York State Education Department (NYSED)’s own home instruction Questions and Answers make the point even clearer. Question 66 asks whether a parent may administer a standardized test or prepare the written narrative assessment. NYSED’s answer is yes, with the consent of the superintendent.
That does not mean a superintendent has no role. The regulation gives the superintendent a consent function, but consent is not the same as a categorical refusal. A district may consider the facts of a particular family’s homeschool program, and it may address a specific concern if there is evidence that one exists. If it determines that an individual parent is unfit, it may even reject the request. What it should not do is presume that every parent is unfit simply because that parent is the child’s mother or father.
That presumption runs against the basic structure of New York’s home instruction regulation. Although it is the most detailed home instruction regulation in the country, § 100.10 still operates on the foundation of entrusting parents with the substance of the child’s education. It is difficult to understand why those same parents should then be deemed categorically incapable of helping document the child’s academic progress at the end of the year.
The concern about objectivity also misunderstands the reality of the annual assessment process. In many cases, the parents are not grading the test. These are commercially published standardized assessments administered through third-party testing companies and the testing company scores it independently of the parent. The parent’s role is often simply to ensure that the child takes the test according to the testing company’s instructions.
To suggest that a parent cannot be trusted to do that because the parent wants the child to succeed is unfair. Parents who homeschool have taken an active and involved role in their child’s development and are not casual observers in their children’s academic progress. They are trying to educate their children and are the people most invested in knowing whether their children are learning. A false picture of progress helps neither the parent nor the child. It only hides problems that a responsible parent has every reason to identify and address.
The district’s policy also affects students directly. Homeschool students are studious and industrious. Much like their public-school peers, many complete rigorous courses, pursue dual enrollment, engage in volunteer opportunities, and prepare for college or employment. In New York, one of the most important documents a graduating homeschool student may need is a district letter confirming that the student’s home instruction was substantially equivalent to a public high school education.
That letter can open doors to a host of postsecondary paths. However, the Edmeston Central School District’s superintendent has stated that she will not issue this letter for students whose parents administer their annual assessments. As such, this misinterpretation of the law will lead to significant consequences for homeschool graduates. If one school district can add an objectivity standard not found in § 100.10, other districts may follow. The result would be a patchwork of local rules where a family’s rights and responsibilities depend less on state regulation and more on a particular district’s preference.
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Parents should be trusted to act in the best interests of their children unless there is a specific reason not to, backed by evidence. That is not only sound public policy but also consistent with what New York’s home instruction regulation states.
The Edmeston Central School District and all school districts in the state should engage in manner that is consistent with the written law. Just as crucially, they should also recognize that the parent-child relationship is not evidence of dishonesty or something to be deemed as suspect. It is the very relationship that makes home instruction possible.
Ralph Rodriguez, Esq. serves as Legal Counsel with HSLDA where he assists New York homeschool families. Ralph is a native New Yorker and lives there with his wife, Briana, and two children.