District Spams Homeschoolers Using Phone Numbers Submitted under Penalty of Law

Imagine how you would feel if the government used information the law requires you to provide in an attempt to sell you something you don’t want. That’s exactly what happened to homeschool families in Mobile County, Ala.

Alabama is categorized by HSLDA as a “low regulation state.” Homeschool families there can operate under one of three options: “church umbrella,” “private school,” or “private tutor,” as there is no actual homeschool statute.

Alabama law still requires families who educate their children at home to provide some level of “reporting on the enrollment of students” (see, e.g., Ala. Code § 16-1-11.1(3)) to the local school district. (Note that there are differences between church schools, families operating under Alabama’s private school law, and Alabama’s private tutor law—see our legal summary. 

And officials shamelessly took advantage of this basic information to send unsolicited text messages to area homeschool families in an attempt to get them to enroll their children in Mobile County Public Schools’ virtual public school program.

HSLDA was alerted to this by Erin Wainright, the founder of South Alabama Homeschooling. Erin found that over 50 homeschool families had received these unsolicited text messages, with no way to opt out.

Expressing Concern

HSLDA immediately sent a letter to the superintendent of Mobile County Public Schools. We told the superintendent in part: “It has come to our attention that these text messages were sent by the Mobile County Public Schools. Many of the families who received these text messages are deeply concerned that the private contact information of Alabama home educators, mandated by state law to be filed with your office, was used as part of a marketing campaign without the consent of the families who provided the information.”

Within a few days of the receipt of our letter, we received a phone call from the attorney representing Mobile County Public Schools. He made it clear that this had been an error on the part of the school district; he apologized, and promised it would not happen again.

We thanked the school attorney for his swift response and conveyed that we were pleased this issue was resolved. Public schools should never use information required by state law to market government services to homeschool families. Parents know their children best and are more than capable of determining what resources are most suitable for their children. They don’t need unsolicited text messages from public schools to get this information.