Published: April 02, 2008 11:54 am      

Parents of home schoolers upset with class limits for their children

KEYSER - A large number of home school supporters crowded into the board room Tuesday evening as Superintendent of Schools Skip Hackworth presented the Mineral County Board of Education with a proposed policy dictating how many public classes a home-schooled student may take in any one school year.

The proposed policy apparently resulted from an incident earlier in the year when three home-schooled students who had enrolled in several classes were told that they had to withdraw from all but two of them in order to meet a requirement that public school classes make up no more than 50 percent of their instructional day.

Parent Bretta Spencer told the board Tuesday neither she nor the students understood the reasoning behind that decision.

"We did not understand why these changes needed to be made in the middle of the year," she said.

"There is no policy as far as we know about the number of classes a home-schooled student can take."

Spencer urged the board members to "put aside your personal views of home schooling ... and review the manner in which this entire matter was handled."

Although Spencer was one of four home school supporters who had signed up Tuesday to speak under the "public comments" portion of the agenda, the group was told it was board policy that if three or more people signed up to speak on the same topic they had to pick one spokesman to represent them.

Two of the people therefore withdrew from the agenda and Spencer and Rob Fout both addressed the board.

Fout told the officials of the academic successes of the three students while they were enrolled in classes, including earning multiple awards through FFA and DECA and holding office in Skills USA.

"I just want to understand the purpose of where this (decision to have them withdraw) originated and why we're at this point," he said.

"Why should students be limited to 50 percent of the instructional day just because they're home schooled?

"I want them to be able to benefit from an educational program that my tax dollars pay for," he said.

Later in the meeting, when Hackworth presented the proposed policy to the board members, along with attached correspondence relating to the issue, he told the officials they had several choices.

"Your first option is, do you even want a policy?" he said. "You may not. It's up to your discretion."

If the board members would choose to adopt a policy, however, he suggested they put it out for comment and ask that any county employee or private citizen wishing to express their opinion place their comments in writing and submit them to the board.

Because there were several letters and pieces of information included with the actual two-page policy, Board President Mary Aronhalt said she'd like some time to look the package over before they made any decision.

"We need to carefully weigh both sides and look at this really hard," she said. "We can't take this lightly."

She asked that the policy be placed on the agenda for the board's April 15 meeting in order to give the board members a chance to examine the material and decide what they want to do.

In the meantime, Hackworth suggested that they not make the proposed document public until they make a decision whether they want to place it out for comment.

"When you make that decision, then it would be appropriate for people to get a copy of it," he said.

"It may be your desire to amend what's being placed out on comment."

When Fout noted that the proposed policy was a public document due to being introduced during an open meeting, however, Hackworth noted that the board would provide a copy "in a timely manner" if a request were made under the Freedom of Information law.

Contact Liz Beavers at lbeavers@times-news.com.