HomeSchool Association of California

Alerts:

On August 8, the California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate  
District ruled that homeschooling is indeed a legal option in  
California. This was a reversal of a ruling in February of this year  
that parents must hold a teaching credential to homeschool their  
children, and confirms HSC’s long held interpretation of private  
school laws.

New terms for independent study programs

The phrase “Independent Study Program” (ISP), when used by those in the private
homeschool community, has applied to situations where one school files a single
private school affidavit (PSA) for multiple homeschooling families whose
children are enrolled in their school. Some programs characterized as ISPs are
part of a private school campus-based school, some are operated as a business
catering to homeschoolers, and others are composed entirely of homeschoolers. In
almost all of these situations, the persons actually teaching the children
enrolled in the school are the parents or guardians of the children, with
varying degrees of assistance or supervision from the school.

The recent homeschooling case in Los Angeles has called into question the wisdom
of using the ISP term. For reasons explained more fully below, the Christian
Home Educators Association of California (CHEA), California Home School Network
(CHN), HomeSchool Association of California (HSC), Home School Legal Defense
Association (HSLDA), and Private and Home Educators of California (part of FPM)
are jointly making the following recommendations regarding the termination of
the use of the term “independent study programs” in the future.

1. We are recommending that the private homeschool community at large, and the
leaders of “private independent study programs” in particular, make a change
from using the descriptive phrase “private school independent study program”
(and its variants – e.g. “ISP”, “Private ISP”, etc.), and instead use the phrase
“Private School Satellite Program” (PSP, with the second “S” purposely
eliminated for simplicity). This will make it clear that these private
homeschool programs, in which the students’ education is provided by or under
the direction of their parents, are different from public school ISPs, in which
there is an assigned credentialed teacher who directs the students’ education
while the parents are teachers' aides.

If a school has the words “independent study program” as part of its name, we
would recommend that the name be changed to eliminate that reference. We are not
saying that schools offering this type of program need to incorporate the words
“satellite program” as part of their official name, and we leave the selection
of the new name to the schools. We do think, though, that it would be prudent to
discontinue the use of the “ISP” term. We understand that this creates some
hardship and inconvenience for some schools, and assure you that we are not
making this recommendation lightly.

2. We also recommend that the administrator of each Private School Satellite
Program (formerly ISP) include in their count of teachers on their annual
private school affidavit at least one parent or guardian from each family in
their Satellite Program (PSP), so that the number of reported teachers more
correctly reflects the actual student-teacher ratio.

In concert with our recommendation #2 above, we want to remind every Private
School Satellite Program administrator to continue to require “a record of
educational qualification of each [teacher]” to be maintained at the address
specified by the private school on the PSA (see Ed Code 33190(f)(3). The PSA
does not ask for the names of teachers, and we do not recommend that any teacher
names be given voluntarily.

This change in terminology DOES NOT affect parents who file an affidavit (PSA)
for their own private school where they teach their own children, but will
affect the remainder of homeschoolers in private school programs to varying
degrees. Families who are enrolled in programs that we would now call PSPs do
not need to do anything other than confirm with their schools that they are
aware of these recommendations. If any school is not aware of them, please feel
free to give them a copy of this message and ask them to contact one of the
organizations listed above for further information if it is needed.

We are recommending this change because of certain developments in the
homeschooling case pending before the California Court of Appeal in Los Angeles.
You may wonder why we feel action is needed even though a new, final decision
has not yet been issued. In its brief prepared for the June rehearing, the
California Department of Education (CDE) expressed their official position on
homeschooling, which calls into question the wisdom of continuing to use the
term “ISP” to describe multi-family homeschool programs. It’s the CDE’s position
that the only valid “independent study” programs are those public school home
study programs that comply with very specific statutory requirements as outlined
in the Education Code. We believe they were confused by the ISP name; in order
to eliminate that confusion, we’re making these recommendations. We would like
to note, however, that they did concede that one family can legally operate a
private school in their home.

We believe that the term “Private School Satellite Program” accurately describes
the operation of a private school that files an affidavit and serves multiple
families, whether it be a private campus-based school with a home study option,
a school operated as a business exclusively serving homeschoolers, or a private
school composed entirely of homeschool families. In each case, the enrolled
family’s home is a satellite location of the private school with the parents or
guardians operating as the teachers of the children in their homes. We evaluated
many different possible terms, researched whether those terms are used in
California state laws or the education laws of other states, and determined
after lengthy debate that “Private School Satellite Program” both did a good job
of describing the situation and avoided any confusion with terms already used in
state statutes or regulations.

We know that you may have questions and you should feel free to contact us for
further clarification.

We do  encourage you to check our homepage www.hsc.org for more information, and all legal updates.

The Legality of Homeschooling: Complying with California Law

There are as many ways to homeschool as there are homeschooling families, and there are numerous legal options to choose when determining the best educational option for your children. We hope this brief overview of your options will make the first step of the journey easier. We welcome you as you join us on this exciting voyage.

We have prepared the information about legal issues on this site solely for the purpose of providing general information concerning laws applicable to homeschooling. The information in this site is not intended to be legal advice or an advertisement for legal services. You should not rely on any information contained in this or any other site discussing legal matters without retaining qualified legal counsel to determine whether the information is current and how it applies to your particular circumstances. We do not become your attorney just because you have accessed this site or simply because you have sent us an e-mail. We do not through this site seek to represent anyone in a jurisdiction where this site may fail to comply with all laws and ethical rules of that jurisdiction. We are not responsible in any manner for information in any site with which this site is linked.

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