Monday evening's Board of Regents meeting on terminating special ed
services for homeschoolers
http://www.regents.nysed.gov/2008Meetings/January2008/0108vesidd3.htm
Presenting to the Regents were members of the State Education Department's Office of Vocational and
Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID), led by the office's director, Dr. Rebecca Cort. In addition to the dozen or so meeting participants, there were about 30 people in the audience, including SED Commissioner Richard Mills.

The hour-long session had three items on the agenda, and the homeschooling issue
was last. There was so much discussion on the first two items that only a few minutes were spent discussing homeschooling.

The most important point is that this termination of services is going to happen. The SED officials explained the situation to the Regents and said that they'd be sending their memo to districts soon to enact this change. There was no objection. In presenting the issue, the SED officials made the following points:

- This change will affect a small number of students (the SED's memo to the Regents estimates about 450), but it is a very serious development for them.

- The SED believes that its opinion regarding the federal IDEA law is correct, namely that states such as New York are not authorized to spend federal special ed money on homeschoolers because they don't regard homeschoolers as private schools. This is being appealed.

- The judge in the court case related to this change is scheduled to rule on summary judgment motions in March. (Summary judgment motions ask the court to rule outright in one side's favor, without
conducting a trial.) If no summary judgment is issued, the case is scheduled to go to trial in June.
(http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-nyndce/case_no-7:2007cv00944/case_id-690\
23/)

- New York could spend federal money on homeschoolers if it classified us as private schools, but the SED doesn't believe it's "appropriate" for the state to regard us as private schools. (The reasons for this view were not stated.)

- Families that are currently receiving services will need to tell the district superintendent how they will be meeting their children's special needs (this is the long-standing provision that the IHIP should address the child's special needs if district services are not being used). For a "severely disabled" child, the superintendent might need to reconsider whether the family is capable of meeting the child's needs at home.

That last point appeared to be a threat that districts might try to force "severely disabled" children into an institutional setting. This does not seem plausible given current policy, which says that  "A home instruction program that adheres to the standards of the regulations at each stage of the
process should be deemed to be substantially equivalent" (see Question 36 at
http://nyhen.org/SED-QA.htm#IHIP). In other words, if you do what the homeschooling regulation says, you're legal.

However, the brief discussion that followed hinted at a possible desire to exert tighter control over disabled children's homeschooling. One of the Regents asked if the homeschooling regulation addresses special education. A SED official responded that it doesn't, but that homeschooling should be substantially equivalent to public schooling (this is in Education Law 3204(2) at http://nyhen.org/laws.htm#3204).

The SED official then posed this question:
Would homeschooling be substantially equivalent in cases of disability?
She noted that district oversight of homeschoolers is uneven, with some districts paying close attention and others not doing so.

This discussion then wrapped up with the most pointed comments of the session.  Continuing on the theme of overseeing homeschoolers, the SED official noted that the federal IDEA law and its regulations prohibit districts from forcing a special ed evaluation on a non-public-school family -- that is, such a
family's consent is required for a district evaluation. Two Regents responded, "That doesn't sound right."

And VESID director Cort added, "Sounds like child abuse."

 Times Union article:

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=655243&category=FRONTPG&BCCod\
e=HOME&newsdate=1/15/2008
   
Daily News article:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2008/01/16/2008-01-16_special_educ\
ation_funding_for_homeschool.html

According to the article (via the NYC Board of Ed), only 14
homeschoolers in NYC receive special services. That seems way low.
  
  NEW - Memo to districts

  http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/policy/homeschool.htm