Summary
1) LB1141 requires the Commissioner of Education “approve” of the parent’s Rule 12/13 application.
Currently, after filing Rule 12/13 materials, parents receive an acknowledgment from the Commissioner of
the Nebraska Department of Education that he has received a request to file as an exempt school.
2) LB1141 requires, annually, that every exempt school child (home school) take a standardized test OR
submit materials to the Department of Education to determine whether the student is making sufficient
academic progress.
The Department of Education will inform parents of the cost of the test and when it will be administered.
3) LB1141 requires children at least six years of age, who are being homeschooled for the first time, be
tested to obtain educational baseline data. Simply put, the Department of Education wants to test your
child BEFORE they are homeschooled to determine what he/she knows. This information will likely be
used to determine whether the student, subsequent to the first year of schooling, is making adequate
progress.
4) LB1141 requires for annual mandatory testing to be conducted by a “certified educator.” The test must
be a “nationally recognized standardized achievement evaluation” or “another assessment tool developed
or approved by the commissioner ...”
5) LB1141 requires, in lieu of taking the test, a parent may submit, as evidence of adequate academic
progress, ALL of the following for each student: a book of lesson plans; a portfolio of the child’s work,
including an outline of the curriculum; copies of homework completed; examples of the student’s
classroom work. If a parent submits materials in lieu of the testing, the materials will be reviewed by an
“evaluator” approved by the Department of Education.
6) LB1141 requires the evaluator to be a certified teacher approved by the Commissioner of the
Department of Education. The “evaluator” may be selected by the parent if that person has the approval of
the Department of Education, but the bill is silent with regard to the procedure for selecting a qualified
evaluator if the parent does not know a certified teacher.
7) LB1141 requires that each student show sufficient progress of academic achievement. Sufficient
progress is defined to mean achieving the equivalent of 6 months of academic progress in the grade level
of the student and having evaluation scores equal to the grade level for which the student is placed
according to his/her age-group peers in the public school system. Nothing in the bill stipulates differences
in evaluation for children with special academic needs.
8) LB1141 requires a student who fails to make sufficient progress as defined by the evaluator to be
enrolled in an accredited school the following year UNLESS before the beginning of the next school year:
the student takes the test again and shows sufficient progress; the child demonstrates sufficient progress in
the opinion of an evaluator approved by the Department of Education; or the Commissioner grants
approval for the student to continue “under a plan for remediation determined by the department.”
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