WEBlue

I looked this up, because I remembered kindergarten wasn't compulsary where we lived in TX in the 1990s. At the public school where the kindergarten was located, when I registered my kids for kindergarten, I was told it wasn't compulsary. (It WAS free, for half a day.) Only first grade was compulsary, then to continue afterwards till age 18, I was told.

So if public kindergarten isn't compulsary in the States, perhaps those offering it can check what criteria they like, such as immigration status?

Here's a chart I found showing ages of compulsary schooling in the USA. Compulsary school attendance seems to start a few years later (in most states at ages 6 or 7) than in the UK.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d...s/dt11_175.asp

jeffreyhy

More to the point, a birth certificate or passport is proof of the child's birthdate and age.

Regards, JEff

Steve_

If you live on the border and send your kids to school in the US though...

jeffreyhy

Just out of curiosity I looked up the student enrollment form for my school district. It does not ask for immigration status or country of citizenship. It does ask for:
- country of birth
- US entry date
- total years living in the US
- total years living in the state

Regards, JEff

slummymummy

WEBlue maybe you have a point about K not being compulsary in some states and maybe then they are allowed to ask etc. Or, they are/were asking despite not being allowed to.

I'll come back on May 7 and let you know what happens when I try to register my child with her UK birth cert!

Bob

Even if they aren't allowed, what are you going to do?

Sue them? Because that'll be quick and cheap.

If you're illegal, you'll also want to stay under the radar and they know this.

Wibblypig

We had to get a declaration of domicile to avoid a hefty registration fee. It was pretty simple, we went to the town hall, husband swore on a bible, they gave us an authorised piece of paper....we then didn't have to pay fee. We didn't show the passports just the birth certificates and the rental contract for our house. However for pre-k at the same school the requirements were stricter and we had to show 2 bills too, so my son didn't start for a further 2 weeks as we had just moved in and had to wait for the bills to arrive.

MarylandNed

I've had dealings with multiple schools in the past 15 years and have never been asked about immigration status. As someone else said, a public school asking for a birth cert or passport is just an attempt to verify date of birth. Don't read anything more into it than that. If you're here legally, this is a complete non-issue anyway.

Bob

That would be the case, except for the fact they would only accept a US issued birth cert or passport, in our kindergarten registration.

slummymummy

So this is a non-issue for most of us as we are not illegal immigrants. But if anyone is and is reading this, schools are not supposed to ask for immigration status! It's the law! Try reminding them about that.

Bob

When has the law ever stopped discrimination though?

MarylandNed

Was this part of the public school system? Or something else?

MarylandNed

Has a school asked you about your immigration status?

kodokan

My school not only didn't ask for my immigration status, it handed me a piece of paper as part of the registration pack roughly saying 'We're not allowed to ask your immigration status! If any member of staff tries to do this, don't answer AND let us know! It's not allowed!'

This is probably because it's a hot topic in Republican Arizona, and there probably would be well-meaning/ discriminatory govt employees who thought it was their responsibility to check.

Bob

I've mentioned it previously, that my experience has been in registering our kid into public, kindergarten.

Run by the town, to get into the free, half day program.

There are loads of private, all day kindergarten programs around, but have no experience of those.

I guess a valid reason for wanting to see "US" ID would be because there's a massive Brazilian population around here and faking a Brazilian birthcert/passport is fairly trivial in comparison. That and the schools probably don't have the resources to get a translator in every time.