Board eases money rule

Home-school allotment unrestricted

September 24, 2006

By Michael Rovito/Frontiersman

PALMER - Parents of home-schooled children in the Mat-Su School District are free to spend a $2,000 allotment as they see fit, the Mat-Su School Board decided Wednesday.

Lacking the abundance of public comment and debate seen during previous meetings, the school board unanimously voted to pass a second reading of a correspondence school regulation with revised language.

The policy mandates that in-district home-school students may use all of a $2,000 allotment given to each student for fine arts, music and physical education as long as the student scores well enough on all standardized tests.

Students who do not maintain a proficient score will be restricted with their money and required to spend at least $500 to support more learning in the areas where more proficiency is needed, according to board documents.

A revised version of the language contained in the correspondence school regulation comes after parents at a Sept. 6 school board meeting expressed their outrage over being limited in how much of each child's $2,000 allotment they could spend on electives.

The Mat-Su School District was brought in line with the requirement - usually applied only to correspondence students in state programs - by chief school administrator Bob Doyle.

&#8220This is a hiccup that happened,” board member Cheryl Turner said during the Sept. 6 meeting.

The original policy, as written in board documents, limited the amount of money to $807 out of the total allotment that parents could spend on electives. After hearing the news, many parents who showed up at the Sept. 6 board meeting chastised members of the board, telling them that electives often run the highest bill for them.

Many parents informed the school board that materials for core classes - such as math and English - cost less than $100, and that electives in art, music and physical education provided their children with a well-rounded education.

Wednesday evening's discussion of the newly rewritten policy was moot compared to previous meetings. No one from the public participated during public comments and there was no discussion or debate before the unanimous vote.

Contact Michael Rovito at 352-2252 or michael.rovito@frontiersman.com.