The Ramirez family moved to a new school district in August 2022. They also decided that the hybrid public school online program their son had been attending wasn’t meeting his needs. So they notified the proper officials of their intent to establish a homeschool program.
Sending their paperwork to the office of the education service district—a government agency that provides services to a number of separate school districts—should have resulted in their son’s former school being notified of his disenrollment.
Given the physical move and the switch to homeschooling, Mrs. Ramirez was not surprised when early last fall she received a couple of phone calls and texts from her son’s previous school asking about him. She simply reminded the school that she had moved and was now homeschooling. She received no additional messages, so she thought everything was resolved.
Further Inquiries
However, in late November, the family received a school form asking about their son’s immunization records. They realized that the school would not make this sort of inquiry unless their son was still enrolled.
Knowing that they needed help, Mrs. Ramirez contacted HSLDA. The parents had filed the paperwork required to establish a homeschool program. They did not want to be falsely accused of failing to comply with compulsory education laws.
Our Oregon legal team worked with our Spanish Bilingual team to gather all the information and communicate with Mrs. Ramirez so we could intervene on her family’s behalf.
We sent a letter to the son’s previous school explaining the situation and informing the principal that the family had moved to a new district and was now homeschooling in compliance with Oregon law.
Another Phone Call
Much to everyone’s surprise, the school nurse called Mrs. Ramirez in January to once again to request her son’s immunization status for the public school. Knowing that homeschool students are not required to submit vaccination records to public school officials in Oregon, Mrs. Ramirez immediately contacted HSLDA.
When I called the school nurse and pointed out that we had contacted the school about this matter a month ago, the nurse was confused. According to her records, the young man was still enrolled as a student.
I informed her that the boy was being homeschooled and requested that she follow up with the principal to make sure that he was withdrawn. Then I followed my phone call with an email and received confirmation that the school had officially completed this former student’s withdrawal.
While it is frustrating that the son’s previous school seemed unwilling to ever let him go, we are happy to report that this young man is finally free to enjoy learning in a personalized homeschool program!