Can You Register Yourself For School Without A Legal Guardian

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U.S. Department of Justice
Ceremonious Rights Segmentation

U.S. Department of Pedagogy
Office for Civil Rights

These Questions and Answers are intended to aid states and schoolhouse districts in meeting their legal obligations to ensure that their enrollment¹ policies and practices exercise non discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, and do non bar or discourage students' enrollment in schoolhouse based on their or their parents' bodily or perceived immigration status. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice encourage states and districts to proactively implement supportive enrollment policies and practices that create a welcoming and inclusive environs for all students.²

Documentation

Q - 1. Should a district inquire into the immigration or citizenship status of a student or parent³ as a ways of establishing the student's residency in the commune?

A - i. No. Clearing or citizenship status is not relevant to establishing residency in the district, and inquiring virtually it in the context of establishing residency is unnecessary and may accept a chilling outcome on student enrollment.

Q - 2. Are students, except homeless students equally provided by Federal statute, required to show electric current residency in a district in social club to enroll in a commune school?

A - ii. A country or commune may found bona fide residency requirements and thus might require that all prospective students, except homeless students as defined and provided by the Federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 11301 et seq., furnish proof of residency within the district.

Q - three. How can students meet requirements to bear witness current residency in a schoolhouse district?

A - 3. Rules vary among states and districts on what forms of documentation can be used to testify residency inside a district. Districts typically accept a multifariousness of documents as proof of residency, such as a telephone or utility bill, mortgage or lease certificate, parent affidavit, rent payment receipts, a copy of a money gild made for payment of rent, or a alphabetic character from a parent's employer that is written on company letterhead.

A parent must exist permitted to constitute residency using any of the alternative methods provided for by state or local law. States and districts cannot utilize dissimilar rules, or utilize the same rules differently, to children based on their or their parents' bodily or perceived race, color, national origin, citizenship, immigration status, or other impermissible cistron. All students must be treated equally.⁴

A district should review the list of documents that tin can be used to found residency to ensure that the documents required would not unlawfully bar or discourage a student who is undocumented or whose parents are undocumented from enrolling in or attending schoolhouse.

Q - 4. Can a homeless kid, including an undocumented homeless kid, ever be required to bear witness residency in a district in order to enroll in a district school?

A - 4. No. Fifty-fifty where a district has valid proof of residency requirements, it must exempt from those requirements all children and youth who are considered homeless under the Federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Help Human activity. These children and youth have a right to enroll in schoolhouse, even if their families cannot produce the documents that would otherwise be required to prove residency.

The McKinney-Vento Act defines the term "homeless children and youth" equally including, in role, "children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of culling acceptable accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abased in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement," as well equally children of migratory agricultural workers. Additional information regarding the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is available at www.ed.gov/programs/homeless/guidance.pdf.

Q - 5. The Love Colleague letter of the alphabet issued on May six, 2011, states that a "school district may require a birth certificate to ensure that a student falls within state- or district-mandated minimum and maximum age requirements; all the same, a district may non bar a student from enrolling in its schools based on a strange nascence certificate." Does that mean that providing a child's birth certificate is necessary to enroll in or attend schoolhouse?

A - 5. No. The Dear Colleague letter does non suggest that states or districts must or should crave a birth document. Furthermore, country laws setting forth enrollment requirements typically either make no mention of nativity certificates, or expressly permit parents to provide culling documents to demonstrate that a kid meets a schoolhouse district'due south age requirements to enroll. Depending on the land or district, culling documents could include, merely are not limited to: a religious, hospital, or physician's certificate showing date of birth; an entry in a family bible; an adoption record; an affirmation from a parent; previously verified schoolhouse records; or any other alternative document permitted past law. School districts should brand parents enlightened of any alternatives that be as part of their efforts to ensure a welcoming and inclusive environment for all students.

Requests for documents such every bit nativity certificates must not unlawfully bar or discourage a prospective educatee from enrolling and attending schoolhouse, including a pupil who is undocumented or has parents who are undocumented, or a child or youth who is homeless as defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Help Deed (run into Q-4, above). Requests for documentation as well may not discriminate, or have the effect of discriminating, on the ground of race, colour, or national origin. All students must be treated equally in the enrollment procedure.

A district, moreover, should not use a pupil's nascency certificate or other documentation provided by a parent as a basis for inquiring into the clearing status of the student, his or her parents, or other family members. Such requests would likely have a discouraging effect on the enrollment of a educatee on the basis of immigration status.

Q - 6. What if a parent is reluctant to provide a copy of his or her kid's foreign birth certificate, fearing that doing and so would lead to questions nearly the child'south or the parent's immigration or citizenship status?

A - 6. School districts are encouraged to take proactive steps to brainwash parents about their children's rights and to reassure them that their children are welcome in district schools. For example, state laws typically permit a commune to apply a multifariousness of documents to institute the age of a child. A commune should publicize that it volition employ a foreign birth document, baptismal record, or culling document in the same fashion that it will employ a United States birth document, baptismal record, or alternative certificate: that is, solely to plant the age of a kid.

Every bit previously emphasized, a district must utilize its rules and standards for documentation of age or residency in the aforementioned way to everyone, regardless of race, color, national origin, citizenship, or immigration status. A strange-built-in child who is unable or unwilling to furnish a nascence certificate should have the same options to enroll in school and should exist treated no differently than a The states citizen child who does not have or otherwise may not be able to produce a nascence certificate.

Q - vii. In light of the Beloved Colleague letter, should districts refrain from asking for students' social security numbers?

A - 7. The Federal government does non prohibit states or districts from collecting the social security numbers of prospective or current students. States and local school districts must determine, withal, whether they accept a legally permissible reason to collect this data. If they choose to collect social security numbers, they must follow Federal laws regulating the use of that information. For example, nether governing Federal laws, if a commune requests social security numbers, it must inform individuals that the disclosure is voluntary, and must explain both the statutory or other footing for seeking the numbers and how the district intends to apply the numbers. See Privacy Act of 1974, Pub. 50. No. 93-579, § 7, 5 U.S.C. § 552a (note), available at http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/comp2/F093-579.html.

As the Love Colleague letter makes clear, a commune cannot deny enrollment to a educatee if he or she (or his or her parent) chooses not to provide the student'due south social security number.^v Districts have alternatives to requesting social security numbers. For instance, a district seeking to take pupil identification numbers could decide to assign a randomly selected number to each pupil. In this mode, the state or district would avoid any chilling effect that a asking for social security numbers may have on the enrollment of students because of their race, color, national origin, citizenship, or immigration status.

A school district that opts to request social security numbers should make clear in all enrollment and registration documents, including forms, websites, and communications with parents, that the provision of the child's social security number is voluntary, and that choosing not to provide a social security number will not bar a kid's enrollment.

Q - 8. How can a school district distinguish between (a) data that it should or must collect, and (b) information that it may not collect because doing so may discourage enrollment or omnipresence?

A - 8. There is typically only minimal information that a commune is required to collect nether land law for a student to be able to enroll, such as proof of historic period, immunization history, and residency within the district. Both the land and the district must human action in compliance with the Constitution and valid Federal or state laws, including their obligations non to discriminate, or implement policies that take the issue of discriminating, on the basis of race, color, or national origin. In doing and then, states and districts should besides assess their electric current policies to determine whether they are doing annihilation that may have the issue, albeit unintended, of discouraging the enrollment of undocumented children, such as asking for immigration papers or social security numbers. Such practices and policies, one time identified, should be changed to eliminate any possible chilling consequence on enrollment.

Q - 9. In order to avert discouraging enrollment, should a school district enroll any child who comes its way and ask for documentation subsequently, after the child is enrolled?

A - 9. As noted above, school districts might require that prospective students replenish proof of residency in a district and/or age prior to enrollment, except for whatever children and youth who are considered homeless under the Federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Help Act. Yet, districts may also choose to expect until students are already enrolled before asking for any additional documentation that may be required under state or Federal law, such every bit student demographic information. Past choosing to look to collect additional information, districts may create a more welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for all prospective students. Requests for documentation must not discriminate, or have the consequence of discriminating, on the basis of race, color, national origin, citizenship, or immigration status.

Q - ten. One time in possession of personal information almost a student, are there circumstances when a school district may disclose that information from a student's education records without the consent of the student or a parent?

A - 10. There are circumstances when a school district may disclose information from a student'due south instruction records, but these are limited and unlikely to be applicable in the bulk of situations school districts face up. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Human activity of 1974 (FERPA) generally prohibits school districts that receive Federal funds from the Department of Education from disclosing student information that lone or in combination with other information can identify that student, without the prior written consent of a parent or the student (if that student is 18 years of age or older or attends a postsecondary institution). See xx The statesC. §1232g. In that location are some express exceptions to FERPA, see 34 C.F.R. §99.31, as well equally narrow, enumerated circumstances under which Federal clearing laws require or allow a school district to provide specific information about a educatee to some other Federal, land, or local authorities entity. 1 such circumstance is where the issuance of a not-immigrant visa to a educatee—and the maintenance of that student's non-immigrant status—is conditioned on the student's omnipresence at a specific school. Note that in that case, a school commune would take preexisting information near the student that he or she would have presented to the school in order to obtain the underlying visa, and then the school would non have whatever reason to initiate a request for information about immigration condition.

Q - 11. How should a school commune communicate the requirements for enrollment with parents who have limited proficiency in English?

A – 11. For limited English proficient parents of a educatee seeking to enroll in a school, a district must meaningfully communicate material information virtually enrollment – e.g., translate a document into languages other than English and accept some method of responding to those parents' questions – as required by Title Vi of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, twenty UsaC. § 1703. Textile information could include alternative means to constitute state-permitted residency and age requirements, if any. If a commune asks for a social security number, textile data would also be the fact that a district cannot deny enrollment to a student if he or she (or his or her parent or guardian) chooses not to provide a social security number.

Additional Proactive Support Measures That States and Districts Can Take

Q - 12. What can schools do proactively to show parents that their children are welcome, regardless of their immigration or citizenship status?

A - 12. The Dear Colleague letter of the alphabet encourages states and districts to review enrollment policies and practices carefully to make certain they are consistent with the law and do not accept a spooky outcome on the willingness of parents to enroll their children. Whatsoever problems should be corrected.
In addition, the U.South. Departments of Education and Justice encourage districts to exist proactive in notifying parents of their rights to ship their children to public school. For instance, districts can behave outreach to communities to inform parents that all students who are residents in the district are welcome to attend the district's schools.

Q - thirteen. Should districts provide staff grooming on how to avoid violating the law in this expanse?

A - 13. Staff grooming at the school and district level is encouraged. Ultimately, the state and district have the legal responsibility to ensure that they are complying with Federal law. Staff preparation helps facilitate that compliance.

Q - xiv. What is the function of Country Educational Agencies (SEAs) in ensuring that students are not improperly excluded from school?

A - 14. The Dear Colleague letter of the alphabet issued May 6, 2011, is intended to remind both districts and states of their obligations under existing law. Equally recipients of Federal funds, SEAs are responsible for monitoring compliance with Federal anti-bigotry laws. Considering laws regarding schoolhouse enrollment, including requirements for proof of age and residency, vary from land to country, this is an expanse in which leadership from SEAs is needed and can be particularly effective. SEAs are encouraged to review existing practices and policies and to aid their districts in understanding the types of practices that will comply with land requirements regarding school enrollment without violating constitutional and Federal anti-discrimination requirements. Specifically, SEAs should work to ensure that their school districts' enrollment practices exercise not unlawfully discourage or bar students, including students who are undocumented or accept parents who are undocumented, from school.

Revised as of July 2012.

¹ For purposes of this guidance, the term "enrollment" as well means registration, matriculation, or attendance in school.

ⁱⁱ This Questions and Answers document accompanies the Dear Colleague letter on the Rights of All Children to Enroll in School, issued by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice on May 6, 2011. This document has been updated to respond to additional questions received since the Dear Colleague letter was issued.

³ For purposes of this guidance, the term "parent" too means guardian or other responsible person under land or local law.

⁴ Title 4 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is enforced by the Department of Justice, prohibits school districts from taking actions that deprive students of equal protection of the laws. Title Half-dozen of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is enforced by the Section of Education, and past the Department of Justice upon referral from a Federal funding agency or through intervention in an existing lawsuit, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

^v Similarly, a school district cannot deny a student enrollment if his or her parent chooses not to provide his or her own social security number.