Required School Enrollment:
Cutoff Date Changing in 2012-15 School Years
Updated July 2011
SB 1381, which was signed into law in 2010, changed the cutoff date by which 6-year-olds are required to be enrolled in school starting in the fall of 2012.
This bill is a positive change in the law. It will give children going to public school more time with their parents before being sent to school. For homeschoolers, the only change will be the school year in which they must start filing a Private School Affidavit.
By way of background, California law states, "Each person between the ages of 6 and 18 years … is subject to compulsory full-time education." (EC §48200) SB 1381 did not change this. In other words, SB 1381 did not lower the age (i.e. 6 years) by which children are required to be enrolled in school. Also, current law does not require children to be enrolled in kindergarten, and SB 1381 did not change this. We watched SB 1381 very carefully to make sure that this bill did not negatively affect any areas of possible concern.
The date for determining if a 6-year-old is required to be enrolled in school in any given school year is based on the date of the child's 6th birthday.
Under current law (i.e., for this 2011-2012 school year), a 6-year-old must be enrolled in school if that child's 6th birthday is on or before December 2nd [EC §48010(a)(1)]. For example, if a child's 6th birthday is on or before December 2, 2011, then that child is required to be enrolled in a school this year. However, if a child's 6th birthday is on or after December 3, 2011, then that child does not have to be enrolled in school until next fall, the beginning of the 2012-13 school year.
What SB 1381 did change is the December 2nd cutoff date – starting in the 2012-13 school year. SB 1381 requires the cutoff date for enrollment of 6-year-olds to be incrementally moved earlier in the year according to the following 3-year schedule:
- The cutoff date will be November 1, 2012 for the 2012–13 school year.
- The cutoff date will be October 1, 2013 for the 2013–14 school year.
- The cutoff date finally will be September 1, 2014 for the 2014–15 school year and remain September 1st for each school year from then on.
Please note that this change does not affect the cutoff date of enrollment for this 2011-2012 school year. The cutoff date is still December 2nd for this school year.
What effect will this have?
For all school children:
Moving this cutoff date earlier in the year (from December back to September) could
actually be of benefit to some children. As a
result of starting school a year later, those children whose birthdates are between September 1 and December 2 should be a bit more ready to learn when they do start school. Research shows that the older a child is before formal education begins, the better the child is likely to do. For information related to early childhood education, see our paper Institutionalized Early Childhood Education Background and Issues at www.childandfamilyprotection.org under the subject "Early Childhood Education".
For homeschooled children:
As stated earlier in this article, the only effect will be the year in which the parents must file their first Private School Affidavit, or enroll their child in a PSP (Private School Satellite Program).
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