Background:

Home-Based Instruction.

Washington law recognizes the desire of some parents to seek home-based instruction for their child. There are statutory requirements to insure that a sufficient basic educational opportunity is provided to children receiving home-based instruction, however, decisions relating to philosophy or doctrine, selection of curriculum, methods, and time and place of instruction are left to parental discretion.

A parent who intends to cause his or her child to receive home-based instruction must annually file a declaration of such intent with the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. In the declaration, the parent identifies the child by name and birth date, acknowledges that the child is between the ages of 8 and 18 and therefore subject to compulsory attendance laws, and indicates parental intent to cause the child to receive home-based instruction. If a certificated person will be providing the instruction, the parent indicates this in the declaration.

Although a child receiving home-based instruction is not required to meet the student learning goals, master the essential academic learning requirements, take state learning assessments, or obtain a certificate of individual or academic achievement, a parent must ensure that the child takes a standardized achievement test approved by the State Board of Education or has an annual academic progress assessment written by a certificated person who is currently working in the field of education. The test results and annual academic progress assessment are made part of the child's permanent record. If it is determined that the child is not making reasonable progress, the parent is required to make a good faith effort to remedy the deficiency.

Parental failure to comply with the above requirements is treated as a failure to attend school without justification and triggers the same statutorily prescribed actions by the school district that it would take to address truancy.

Learning Programs and School District Notification Requirements.

Students receiving home-based instruction, as well as those enrolled in a private school, may take courses at or receive ancillary services from the local school district. Districts may offer or contract to offer "digital programs", which means electronically delivered learning that occurs primarily away from the classroom. Students receiving home-based instruction or enrolled in private schools may enroll part-time in these digital programs. With respect to these digital programs, school districts are required to provide certain information to students and parents, including information regarding whether or not the program covers the learning goals or essential academic learning requirements and whether they permit the student to meet one or more of the state's or district's graduation requirements.

Similarly, students receiving home-based instruction or enrolled in private schools are eligible to participate in Running Start at institutions of higher education. School districts must provide general information about the program to all students in grades ten, eleven, and twelve and the parents and guardians of those students.

School districts are also required by statute to annually inform parents of the district's intradistrict and interdistrict enrollment options and parental involvement opportunities.