ROCK SPRINGS — A March 22nd deadline for homeschool student curriculums to be turned into Sweetwater County School District No. 1 has some parents concerned that they won’t have enough time to meet the request.

Several parents expressed those concerns during the public comment period of the Board of Trustees’ regular meeting last night. Homeschool families received a certified letter from the district recently stating that the curriculum must be turned in within the next two weeks.

“The beauty of homeschooling my children is that I get to tailor their learning experience to fit their needs,” said parent Elena Bulkley. “That takes time to research, and the deadline is just unacceptable.”

Bulkley continued that while she understands funding is a big concern for the district this year, it doesn’t affect her family because she funds her children’s education. She also said the district is wasting money by sending out expensive, certified letters when homeschooled families are not legally required to meet the deadline.

Parent Traci Hager wrote that The deadline is unacceptable because she is new to homeschooling and “I’m just beginning to discover what curriculums and teaching styles work for our family.”

Parent Tassie Smith commented that while she doesn’t have a problem sharing her child’s homeschool curriculum with the district, she said “even in public schools students are tested and evaluated at the end of the school year to determine the best course for next year.”

Federal Guidelines

Director of Grants and Federal Programs Linda Carter apologized for any confusion or misunderstanding the certified letter may have caused homeschool families.

She said the correspondence had two parts: one was to meet federal program requirements for grant writing purposes, and the second was to provide a way for parents to submit their information regarding the direction they’re planning to go with their homeschool curriculum.

State law requires parents to submit a sequential curriculum to the district so that it knows that parents are planning to homeschool their student. However, Carter said SCSD No. 1 policy adds a bit more to the language, requiring parents to submit their curriculum sometime before the new school year starts.

Carter added that federal guidelines have changed over the last few years which requires districts to collect and identify the homeschool curriculums while the grant planning process, and not after the grant is completed.

The grant planning process begins in March and April, its submitted in May, and then grants are awarded between July and September, Carter said.

“The timing for some of the information related to the home-based education parents was generally coming in around August,” she said. “That didn’t give us a good idea or numbers of parents and students that would have the opportunity to utilize some of the federal programs.”

Some of the programs available to homeschooled students include Title I, Title II, Title III, the Perkins Grant, and IEDA for special education.

Process Changes

Carter also told the board that the District used to reach out to homeschool families via regular stamped mail asking for the curriculum. If the parents didn’t respond, the District would try reaching out again.

But in 2020-21, that process changed and the District did not get its consolidated grant until certified letter were sent to all homeschool families. Carter said Title I funds were used to send out the certified letters, and the process will continue “until requirements from the Wyoming Department of Education changes, or the federal government changes.”

Carter said moving forward the District will send two letters to homeschool families: one notifying parents about the federal grant programs, and the second notifying parents about the timeline and requests for the curriculum component.

Board chairwoman Carol Jelaco also suggested that the language in the letters be refined so its no so “heavy handed” when addressing the curriculum requests.