I wish I knew what was in this lunch, because it’s kind of pretty.
The soup is obviously butternut squash or sweet potato. The stirfry contains kale and red peppers and chestnuts, and is sprinkled with sesame seeds . . . but it sure beats me what else is in either of these concoctions.
I made this Sichuan tofu and bok choy when we were first starting out.
I didn’t press my tofu and I wasn’t very careful with it, so it ended up a lot more crumbled than I originally conceived. The bok choy came out beautifully, stir-fried with just a touch of oil, some garlic, and vegetable stock.
Know Your Homeschool Laws: Testing or Assessment
Each year, you need to either administer a standardized test, or have your child(ren) assessed by a certificated teacher. You may use the school for this, by asking to take the WASL with them (the WASL is going away, but the new testing will likely be offered to homeschoolers as well. I had a very nice invitation from our local elementary school to join them for the WASL when we lived in the Valley). You do NOT have to use the schools for testing. You may use a professional to administer the test, OR you may order a test that you administer. The qualifications to administer the test are based on the testing company’s requirements.
In the past, we have used the CAT Survey (available from Seton Hall ) and we’ve used the CAT Complete Battery (available from the Family Learning Organization). Family Learning Organization (located here, in Spokane), also has two types of teacher-assessments: a freestyle form and a checklist form, which you fill out and return, and they have a teacher review. There are also homeschool-friendly teachers in the area who are willing to do assessments.
We have chosen to do the testing, because we wanted Farmerteen to have experience on standardized tests. This year, she took the SAT over at CdA Highschool, which fulfills our compliance for testing this year. Depending on how she did, we may also have her take the CAT for her actual grade level.
Assessment is a really good choice for children who have test-anxiety, or whose ability to perform on a test is compromised. An assessment can be a particularly good choice for a special-needs child whose growth and development might show at all on a standardized test, or for a child with really specific interests, whose education is taking h** on a radically different path than a traditional path.
You can alternate between testing and assessment. You are not stuck choosing just one.
RCW 28A.200.010
Home-based instruction — Duties of parents.
Each parent whose child is receiving home-based instruction under RCW 28A.225.010(4)
shall have the duty to:
(3) Ensure that a standardized achievement test approved by the state board of
education is administered annually to the child by a qualified individual or that an annual
assessment of the student’s academic progress is written by a certificated person who is
currently working in the field of education. The state board of education shall not require
these children to meet the student learning goals, master the essential academic learning
requirements, to take the assessments, or to obtain a certificate of mastery pursuant to
*RCW 28A.630.885. The standardized test administered or the annual academic progress
assessment written shall be made a part of the child’s permanent records. If, as a result of
the annual test or assessment, it is determined that the child is not making reasonable
progress consistent with his or her age or stage of development, the parent shall make a
good faith effort to remedy any deficiency.Failure of a parent to comply with the duties in this section shall be deemed a failure
of such parent’s child to attend school without valid justification under RCW
28A.225.020. Parents who do comply with the duties set forth in this section shall be
presumed to be providing home-based instruction as set forth in RCW 28A.225.010(4).
Know Your Homeschool Laws: Record Keeping
You do need to keep a few records. Specifically, you need to keep your annual test scores or assessments, and immunization records. You may also keep other records, but you are not required to.
There is no mechanism for the state to audit you, look at your records, or request them, unless you enter the school system. (At which point, frankly, they do their own test, and put your kid in a class based on age, regardless of how well or poorly *he did on the test). To be in compliance with the law, you do need to keep test/assessment scores and immunization records (or exemptions).
You may want to keep further records for yourself. It’s nice to look back and see what you’ve done. Because we’re unschoolers, one of the things I did, when we first started out, was to create a blog, for which I created post categories that were the different subjects. At the end of each day, I wrote about what we had done, sorted into those categories. Anytime I thought, “We never do anything,” I’d go back and look at the blog, and see that we were actually doing all kinds of things in, say, math, or English, or science.
Additional records are also a good thing to keep when you have a joint custody situation. I’ve seen a lot of homeschooled children forced into school because of custody arrangements. If your homeschooling is called into question in court, good solid records can be very beneficial to making your case to continue homeschooling.
RCW 28A.200.010
Home-based instruction — Duties of parents.
Each parent whose child is receiving home-based instruction under RCW 28A.225.010(4)
shall have the duty to:
(2) Ensure that test scores or annual academic progress assessments and immunization
records, together with any other records that are kept relating to the instructional and
educational activities provided, are forwarded to any other public or private school to
which the child transfers. At the time of a transfer to a public school, the superintendent
of the local school district in which the child enrolls may require a standardized
achievement test to be administered and shall have the authority to determine the
appropriate grade and course level placement of the child after consultation with parents
and review of the child’s records; and
Know Your Homeschool Laws: Declaration of Intent
The Declaration of Intent is paperwork that must be submitted annually for HBI children ages 8-18.
You DO NOT file a Declaration of Intent to Homeschool for a child who is under 8 years old.
The HBI compliance covering compulsory attendance is ONLY for 8-18 year olds. The only children under 8 who are compelled to attend school are those whose parents have enrolled them in a public school. (And those need to be un-enrolled before homeschooling), but we DO NOT file DofIs for the
sub-eight set.
RCW 28A.225.015
Attendance mandatory — Six or seven year olds(1) If a parent enrolls a child who is six or seven years of age in a public school, the child is required to attend and that parent has the responsibility to ensure the child attends for the full time that school is in session. An exception shall be made to this requirement for children whose parents formally remove them from enrollment if the child is less than eight years old and a petition has not been filed against the parent under subsection (3) of this section.
Once the child turns eight, you must either declare (HBI), or send them to public or private school.
RCW 28A.200.010
Home-based instruction — Duties of parents.
Each parent whose child is receiving home-based instruction under RCW 28A.225.010(4)
shall have the duty to:
(1) File annually a signed declaration of intent that he or she is planning to cause his
or her child to receive home-based instruction. The statement shall include the name and
age of the child, shall specify whether a certificated person will be supervising the
instruction, and shall be written in a format prescribed by the superintendent of public
instruction. Each parent shall file the statement by September 15 of the school year or
within two weeks of the beginning of any public school quarter, trimester, or semester
with the superintendent of the public school district within which the parent resides or the
district that accepts the transfer, and the student shall be deemed a transfer student of the
nonresident district. Parents may apply for transfer under RCW 28A.225.220;
The law is unclear on what to do in the following situation:
Your child turns 8 in November. The annual DofI is due Sept. 15th, or “within two weeks of the beginning of any public school quarter, trimester, or semester.” Do you: a) File in September or b) File after the 8th birthday?
I would do it at whichever point is closest to the birthday. I would file in Sept. for an Oct. or Nov. birthday, and in January for a Dec. or January birthday. The law does not specify, so I look at the cut-off dates for if or not the child would be accepted into the second grade. Once your child has turned eight, you want to do it, if only for a CYA, even if your child is turning eight in the middle of the school year. In my experience, most districts are happy to take the DofI at any point in the year. The law seems to have been written to streamline the record keeping for the districts (instead of having a constant stream of DofIs rolling in), but I have never heard of a District rejecting one for not being “within two weeks of.”
Know Your Homeschool Laws: Qualifications to Homeschool
There are four ways to qualify to homeschool in WA. You can be supervised by a teacher, have 45 college quarter credit hours, take a qualifying course, or be rubber-stamped by your local superintendent. With the exception of teacher-oversight or superintendent-approval, there is no mechanism for the state to check your qualifications. (Teacher-oversight, if you are using it, needs to be included on your Declaration of Intent). You do not need to submit proof of your college attendance, or completion of the qualifying course.
RCW 28A.225.010 (4)
(a) Provided by a parent who is instructing his or her child only and are supervised by
a certificated person. A certificated person for purposes of this chapter and chapter
28A.200 RCW shall be a person certified under chapter 28A.410 RCW. For purposes of
this section, “supervised by a certificated person” means: The planning by the certificated
person and the parent of objectives consistent with this subsection; a minimum each
month of an average of one contact hour per week with the child being supervised by the
certificated person; and evaluation of such child’s progress by the certificated person. The
number of children supervised by the certificated person shall not exceed thirty for
purposes of this subsection; OR
(b) Provided by a parent who is instructing his or her child only and who has either
earned forty-five college level quarter credit hours or its equivalent in semester hours OR
has completed a course in home-based instruction at a postsecondary institution or a
vocational-technical institute; OR
(c) Provided by a parent who is deemed sufficiently qualified to provide home-based
instruction by the superintendent of the local school district in which the child resides.
Know Your Homeschool Laws: What constitutes home-based instruction (the legal name of homeschooling in WA)?
There are 11 subjects to cover under the WA homeschooling laws.
But how you go about it, and what you use to cover them is completely up to you.
RCW 28A.225.010
(4) For the purposes of this chapter and chapter 28A.200 RCW, instruction shall be
home-based if it consists of planned and supervised instructional and related educational
activities, including a curriculum and instruction in the basic skills of occupational
education, science, mathematics, language, social studies, history, health, reading,
writing, spelling, and the development of an appreciation of art and music, provided for a
number of hours equivalent to the total annual program hours per grade level established
for approved private schools under RCW 28A.195.010 and 28A.195.040 and if such
activities are:
(5) The legislature recognizes that home-based instruction is less structured and more
experiential than the instruction normally provided in a classroom setting. Therefore, the
provisions of subsection (4) of this section relating to the nature and quantity of
instructional and related educational activities shall be liberally construed.
RCW 28A.200.020
Home-based instruction — Certain decisions responsibility of parent unless
otherwise specified.
The state hereby recognizes that parents who are causing their children to receive home-
based instruction under RCW 28A.225.010(4) shall be subject only to those minimum
state laws and regulations which are necessary to insure that a sufficient basic educational
opportunity is provided to the children receiving such instruction. Therefore, all decisions
relating to philosophy or doctrine, selection of books, teaching materials and curriculum,
and methods, timing, and place in the provision or evaluation of home-based instruction
shall be the responsibility of the parent except for matters specifically referred to in this
chapter.
Know Your Homeschool Laws: Compulsory Attendance
The linchpin of all educational laws is compulsory attendance. Compulsory attendance laws are on the books in every state, but vary widely. In Washington, children 8-18 are subject to compulsory attendance laws. Just over our border to the east, in Idaho, children 7-16 must attend school. Across the border to our south, in Oregon, it’s 7-18. If your child does not comply with attendance laws, *he will be considered truant, and the penalties range from fines to time in jail.
In each state, exceptions to compulsory attendance in public schools include children who are in private schools, alternative education programs, and who are homeschooled.
RCW 28A.225.010
Attendance mandatory
(1) All parents in this state of any child eight years of age and under eighteen years of age
shall cause such child to attend the public school of the district in which the child resides
and such child shall have the responsibility to and therefore shall attend for the full time
when such school may be in session unless:
(b) The child is receiving home-based instruction as provided in subsection (4) of this
section;
Other exceptions to the compulsory attendance laws include children younger than 8 who are enrolled in a public school, and children older than 18, who continue to attend their program. The basic idea here is “in for a penny, in for a pound” . . . you cannot choose to be absent if you’re in a public school program, because you have made yourself subject to the attendance laws. If you un-enroll your under-8 or over-18 child, they are no longer subject to the compulsory attendance laws.
There are several annoying things about telling people you’re on Fuhrman.
The first one is that they make some comment about having “too much” fiber, or having flatulence. This is a sign of how unhealthy our culture’s eating habits are: that we have an idea that you can have “too much” vegetable fiber.
Second, people make comments about protein, as if there were none in vegetables (which again belies how poor our diets are, and how poor our understanding about food, as a culture, is).
Third, I think most people still think kale (and chard and bok choy) are garnishes. This is not so much annoying as it is tiring . . . even before Fuhrman, we ate kale at least twice a week. We’re now eating it 4-6 times a week. Kale is really good for you. It’s full of calcium, among other things.
Fourth, sure, I miss meat (and eggs and cheese and cream and coffee and wine) . . . but I’m not feeling underfed, undernourished, or even like I’m missing out on something (well, this week, being the height of corned beef and cabbage season, I was missing THAT). I’m a little bummed when I run across a recipe that includes ingredients I’m not having until Easter, but at the same time, I think I’ve flat-lined my adrenal system, and I’m not feeling the “afternoon slump” I used to get every day.
I was pretty pleased with my kofta balls last week, and thought, “I bet these would work nicely as “meatballs.””
The original koftas wanted to be fried, and that’s out on the Fuhrman (and the few times I’ve had too much oil have not been too pleasant), but I got to thinking that I could probably bake them just fine.
I made the sauce with one jar of Marinara, one can of tomato puree, and one soy chorizo. It’s topped with a cashew-nutritional yeast “cheese” which no one but me likes.
