I have been home educating with an exemption for 29 years. Craig and I have had contact with the MoE for most of those years. I have to say that the current staff at the National Office of the MoE are the most home educating friendly National Office staff that we have had. We have seen them making changes to make the enviroment for home educating in New Zealand even better than it already was.

At the moment we are going through the Red Tape Cluster Buster meeting results and the Survey that many of you filled out. On many of the comments that you all made the MoE is listening and making changes. Hopefully we will be seeing the plain english version of the Exemption Form by the end of June.

There are some things that the MoE have discussed and decided to make no changes on. I would like to mention two of those things here and get your feedback where appropriate.

School Principals

The MoE still feels it needs to talk with the Principals during the exemption application process when we are pulling our children out of school to home educate them.  They did say to us in one meeting that if people are having trouble with their principal during the exemption application process then we need to let them know. Today I have just heard of two families having trouble with their principal during the application process.

If you have had or are having  any trouble with your principal due to the MoE contacting them during the exemption application process then please let me know.

Justified Absence

The same applies to “Justified Absence”. I thought that we might be able to use the term “Justified Absence” which schools have to justify why they are not at school for a period of time but the MoE is keeping to their decision that our children must be in school during the ages of 6-16 unless they already have an exemption.

So if you are having any a trouble getting a “Justified Absence” from your principal, a letter from your Dr or any other way then please let me know.

I still don’t have the internet on. This post has been written in a hurry as we are going out shortly to hopefully buy a car and see again about getting the internet at our new home. I want to hear from you as soon as possible so that we can talk to the MoE about this as soon as possible.