Guideline 3
School officials may consider teaching materials, but only if it is to determine subject and grade levels of the children being taught. School officials may not use this access as a means to dictate the manner in which the subjects will be taught. There are actually some lessons that are considered intangible to school systems.
For example, travel, community service, visits to educationally enriching facilities like museums and places like this, and meeting with various resource people, can provide important learning experiences apart from the four corners of a text or workbook that can make homeschooling more rewarding for parent and child.
In order for you to be able to follow this guideline properly: You can write in your educational plan, that you will be using a variety of materials and resources, whereas you will be providing a list to be made available to the school department upon request.
Or, you can list the books and other resources that you will ensure that they will have available to them. If you are using a pre-set curriculum, then you can list the books and resources you will be following from that. If your school insists on getting more detail, photocopying the table of contents of a couple of key books will probably be good enough.
If after trying one or more of the above suggestions, you find that a school official insists on actually seeing the books and materials, you could point out that your plan includes making use of such intangible resources, and that the internet and the public library are accessible to anyone, where you can find the information easily.
It is all really about how best to define access in this context. You need to remember that approval can only be conditioned on requirements that are absolutely necessary to the State interest in making sure that all of the children will be educated properly.
Since most of the schools feel that a list of resources meets their need for access to teaching materials, and since some of them are happy with far less than that, it would be very hard difficult to argue that physical access is needed.
Some of these resources that you can use are:
• Encyclopedias
• Dictionaries
• Atlases
• Reference books and materials (such as textbooks, field guides, timelines,
globes, maps, etc.)
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Library loan books, tapes, magazines, etc.
• Educational games
• Educational computer software and on-line services
• Calculating and measuring tools and utensils
• Arts & crafts supplies
• Writing supplies
• Musical instruments
• Audio-visual equipment and materials
• Religious materials
• Science lab equipment
• Sports equipment
• Community resources (such as museums, theatres, sports programs,
• Private lessons, volunteer opportunities)