“Oh, look! The school district included the Homeschool Iowa IPI form in the information packet they sent me. I’ll just fill it out and send it in.”
Sounds simple; right?
And how nice that the school district used a Homeschool Iowa form; right?
Not so fast. Let's take a closer look at the form.
A careful inspection of the Homeschool Iowa IPI Response Form (above left) indicates that it includes spaces for only the information that is required by law for an IPI provider to give to the public school.
The form that was sent out by an Iowa school district (above right) was the 2013 version of the Homeschool Iowa IPI form, and it had been altered. Under each line provided for the IPI student’s name, a school district staff person had typed in “DOB” (date of birth) and “GR” (grade) – neither of which are data required by law.
The Homeschool Iowa copyright notification was left at the bottom of the form.
Some homeschooling parents in this district completed the altered form and submitted it before Homeschool Iowa became aware of the situation.
Immediately, upon discovery of the altered form, Homeschool Iowa contacted the school district. It required more than one communication attempt, but we did receive a response that the form had been changed back to the original format.
Homeschool Iowa informed the school district that it should notify the parents who received the altered form that it was not the original Homeschool Iowa form and that it had been changed to include requests for information that is not required under Iowa law.
When we asked the school district if this had been done, the superintendent replied that they had not contacted the parents who had received the altered copyrighted form. Homeschool Iowa is taking steps to inform homeschooling parents in the school district about the altered form.
What can we learn from this?
- We cannot assume that everything we receive from the public school accurately reflects the current homeschool law and rules.
- We need to be well-informed as to the requirements for the homeschool legal option we select.
- We can use resources like the Homeschool Iowa website Homeschool Options page to find details about homeschool legal options.
- We can be sure we’re using a genuine Homeschool Iowa copyrighted form when we download it from the Homeschool Iowa website Homeschool Forms page.