The Home School Legal Defense Association says it has successfully intervened in the case of two New Jersey parents who decided to homeschool their child instead of utilizing the Westfield, N.J. public school system.

According to the homeschooling advocacy group, the trouble began earlier this school year when the assistant superintendent of the Westfield Public Schools sent a letter to the parents warning them that they have no choice but to abide by New Jersey’s Common Core standards.

The letter ordered the parents to present a “letter of intent” to school district officials and an outline of their proposed curriculum. Then, the letter reportedly said, the parents had to hope the superintendent would accept their curriculum and allow them to continue homeschooling their own child.

The parents responded by contacting the Home School Legal Defense Association. In a letter of his own, Scott A. Woodruff, an attorney for the organization, schooled the assistant superintendent on New Jersey homeschooling law.

After hearing from Woodruff, the assistant superintendent quickly changed his tune.

In a second letter to the parents, the HSLDA claims, the mid-level bureaucrat ditched all of his demands and deferentially informed the parents that their homeschooling decisions “should be guided by the New Jersey Common Core State Standards.”

Now, EAGnews.org reports, the assistant superintendent is arguing that all he ever wanted was to inform the parents that they “need to be mindful that they should be following New Jersey Core content standards.”

Woodruff wrote a follow-up letter to the school district explaining that New Jersey parents who choose to homeschool their children have no duty whatsoever to follow Common Core.

EAGnews and the HSLDA have not identified the parents or the assistant superintendent who wrote the letters to the parents.

The Twitter account of a man named Paul Pineiro indicates that Pineiro is currently “Assistant Superintendent of Westfield Public Schools.”

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