Home Based Students and the WASL

HOME-Based Students and the WASL

If you are homeschooling under the home-based instruction law, your children are exempt from the Education Reform Act of 1994 and therefore the WASL.

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 academic achievement or a certificate of individual achievement pursuant to RCW 28A.655.061 and 28A.155.045. RCW 28A.200.010 (c)

However, students enrolled full time in a public school program such as an alternative learning program, parent partnership program, cyberschool, or on-line program are considered full time public school students and are therefore required to take the WASL.

April 04, 2004 the State Superintendent’s Office sent out a bulletin to all Educational Service District Superintendents, Chief School District Administrators, School Principles, District Assessment Coordinators, and School District Relations Professionals. This bulletin contained instructions to school district personnel to make the WASL available upon request to home-based students and that participation is strictly voluntary.

If your school district is telling home-based students they must take to WASL, we suggest you print off this page of information along with a copy of the bulletin from the State Superintendent’s Office. Some school districts have asked parents to sign a release form, this is not necessary for home-based students.

http://www.k12.wa.us/BulletinsMemos/bulletins2004/B020-04.doc

For your convenience, we have included language from the bulletin below:

Bulletin #020-04

8. Home-based, Private School, and Foreign Exchange Students, and Alternative Learning Experience Students—Do not include foreign exchange students or home-based students in P105-A reports. Home-based students, including those receiving ancillary services, and private school students are not required to take the WASL. They may, however, participate in the testing at the request of their parents. To ensure that these students are not included in any aggregate reporting, it is important to follow the instructions for marking Box 10 on the demographic pages of their test booklets as shown in the Assessment Coordinator’s Manual. Although the scores for these students will not be included in any aggregate reporting, they will receive individual student reports. The individual student reports will be sent to the districts where the students were tested.

In recent years, a number of school districts have designed and implemented alternative learning experience programs, as described in WAC 392-121-182. Students participating in these programs are considered full-time public school students. As such, they are subject to the state requirements applicable to all other public school students, including participation in the WASL. They should not have a declaration of intent to receive home-based instruction on file. (emphasis added)

Preserving homeschool freedoms for today and tomorrow

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