NM Law
Current Developments
If you value the freedom to train and educate your children, please keep these issues in your prayers and on your minds.Every so often a legislator or a school official decides that homeschoolers in New Mexico need more regulation, a new statute, or a policy needs to change. Once in a great while, that’s a good thing. Most often, it is not. Recently, a few schools have initiated some potential action toward further regulation. Listed below are the articles and CAPE-NM response to these actions. We want to be ready to take our concerns to the next level, but for now we are asking you to become informed and available.
CAPE-NM Response to Raton School Board Proposal
CAPE-NM Response to Rio Rancho
We continue work for the freedoms we enjoy. If you like what you see, please join CAPE-NM or donate to help us continue in those freedoms. We also invite you to contact us if you have questions or concerns or would like to send us information from you area. Thank you so much!
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Current NM Statute Regarding Home School
New Mexico Statutes Annotated 22-1-2.1
A.Parents/Legal Guardians must send written notification to the Secretary of Education within thirty days of the home school’s establishment and by April 1 of each subsequent year of operation for renewal.
B. Maintain records of student disease immunization or a waiver of that requirement; and
C.Provide instruction by a person possessing at least a high school diploma or its equivalent.
Two ways to Notify
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| Online Notification-link to PED | Establishment of a Home School Notification (pdf) |
New Mexico Homeschool Freedom History
Between the advent of compulsory attendance laws and before 1985, families who chose to home school were outside the law. They chose to face the possibility of prosecution.
The first home school law was passed after intense lobbying by brave families who risked identification and potential prosecution in order to establish home education as a legal option. Parents were required to have at least a bachelor’s degree or request a waiver, to notify the State Superintendent of Public Instruction of their intent to home school, to provide a calendar of 180 school days annually, to submit their children to the public school system for testing, and to submit a record of immunizations or a waiver.
In 1993, home school testing requirements were changed to allow supervised administration by home school operators, at sites other than public schools.
The baccalaureate requirement was dropped in 1993 as well, allowing parents with high school diplomas or GEDs to school their children at home without applying for a waiver.
In 1996, instead of submitting children for testing, home school families could submit test scores instead, using alternate testing options.
The year 2001 marked a new home school law, with no mandatory testing, and no required submission of a calendar of days or records of vaccination. It is recommended that such records be kept and available.