Official Withdrawal Letter Sent

Our "official" Withdrawal Letter has been sent to our public school district. Our circumstances are probably a little different than most families. Our adoption of our youngest two daughters was finalized in July 2012. Up until that time, they were in the Foster Care System. Children in Illinois  Foster Care between the ages of 3 and 5 are required to be in either daycare or preschool.  They are also required to attend public school so, even though the social services knew we intended to homeschool, we could not begin our homeschool journey until we had those adoption papers in our hands. July was cutting it close. We did not want to have to start Maddy in public school then pull her out again.

I am not a big fan of pre-k. I understand that there are some children who truly need it. But I feel like it has become, like kindergarten (remember when kindergarten was only a half-day?) a baby-sitter. Last year was Maddy's THIRD year to be in pre-k. When Kenna turned 4, Maddy's afternoon pre-k class was full and we "lucked out" that there was an opening in the morning class; otherwise, we would have been forced to place Kenna in daycare and would have had to pay for it out of our own pocket (the state would not pay for her being in childcare, even though it would've been a "requirement" because I did not work or go to school). I argued that, since I do not work nor did I want to "get the kids out of my hair", they should not have to go to either pre-k or daycare. Too bad. The first half of the year, I met myself coming and going - Kenna had to be at school at 8 a.m., picked up at 10:25 a.m., home in time to fix their lunch, Maddy had to be at school at 12:15 p.m. and picked up at 2:25 p.m.. Thankfully, before the year was over, there was an opening in the a.m. class and we moved Maddy into Kenna's class. The girls' pre-k teacher was great, and we love her to death and have become good friends. But...

This school year, our adoption is final, and we ARE homeschooling. And McKenna is NOT going to pre-k. It's been a great summer and we've been able to get back to doing "stuff" we have always done before we had to go to pre-k (crafts, reading, cooking, playing, etc.). But I digress...

Our "official" Withdrawal Letter was sent, certified with returned receipt, on August 17th. According to USPS tracking, the school received notification that they had a registered letter to pick up on August 18th and that it was delivered on August 20, today. Should receive our little green card tomorrow or the next day.

If you are planning on homeschooling, I recommend that you mail - certified with a return receipt (the green card they sign and gets sent back to you) - a Withdrawal Letter to your public school district. A sample copy of one we used can be seen by clicking on the "The Withdrawal Letter" page on the right-hand sidebar of this blog.