District Impact Summary October 2026

Highlights

• Lynchburg City: HEAV worked with the division to ensure that its determinations about a family’s legal compliance, which affect parental rights, are consistent with state law and follow statutory processes, including the process for placing a home instruction program on probation. Specific concerns included:
  • Categorically rejecting report cards from certain institutions instead of evaluating whether they show adequate educational growth and progress
  • Requesting additional curriculum documentation with submitted evidence of progress
  • Publicly stating that legal documents would not be recognized or accepted unless submitted in the division’s preferred manner<
    •  

HEAV helped several affected families understand the applicable law, assess the division’s requests and decisions, and identify steps they could take to protect their home instruction rights.

• Loudoun County: HEAV helped a parent respond to a school nurse’s repeated requests for a homeschooled student’s private immunization records, clarifying that under § 22.1-271.4, the parent of a home-instructed student submits proof of immunization to the division superintendent upon request, not through public school enrollment practices. HEAV is working with the division to identify what led to the requests and to ensure future requests follow the applicable statutory procedure.
  • • • •  
• Dinwiddie County: HEAV equipped a parent to respond to a school division staff member’s request that would have conditioned recognition of the family’s legal compliance on proof of enrollment with a homeschool curriculum provider, a requirement not supported by Virginia law.
  • • • •  
• Warren County: HEAV clarified the law for a parent after a school division staff member asked her to assign and report a grade level, which Virginia law does not require, and referred to the division’s voluntary written acknowledgment of receipt of her legal documents as an “approval letter.”
  • • • •  
• Page County: HEAV addressed community concerns about the division’s social media recruitment efforts promoting a virtual public school option that appeared to target only the homeschool community and inappropriately included religiously exempt families.