Forms & Resources

If you have had an Opt Out denied and your child has been removed from or denied access to electives, athletics, recess or other physical activities, use this letter to advise the school to restore all electives.  PLEASE NOTE: all our forms require you to customize them to your situation.  Custom areas are in [brackets] and are usually self-explanatory.

If you are unable to download using the Download Manager, you may use this direct link.  PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THE DIRECT LINK.

This letter opts your child out of HB 4545 accelerated instruction for the upcoming school year.  It should be delivered to the school before the staff reports back for the fall (although there is no deadline).  I recommend you wait until all summer instruction has ended, so their full attention is on the fall.

If for some reason the download does not work, use this direct link, but please DO NOT SHARE THE DIRECT LINK.

This short letter is all you need to advise the school that your child will not be participating in HB 4545 summer school.

We will provide an additional letter for the fall. Use this letter only for the summer school notices.

Note: if you are unable to download from this page, use this link.  DO NOT SHARE THE LINK.

This letter requests that on the make up day for STAAR, your child be permitted to refuse in the office and return to class rather than have to enter a testing room and stay for four hours.  This may be made obsolete by the move to online administration.  However, just last year with COVID, we heard of the TEA permitting schools to submit score sheets for scoring based on nothing more than a notice of intent to refuse from the parent.  This new approach is discussed in our Article: TEA Confirms: School Can Accept Parental Refusal of STAAR  Letter is pending revision on this point but should still work.

This is the current version of our TPERN opt out letter.  It has been updated to include the refusal language the TEA require that the local campus document.

Often, the schools respond and decline your opt out notice based on the theory that Tex. Educ. Code sec. 26.010 does not permit a parent to opt out “to avoid a test.” This letter responds to that legal argument.

This letter is updated to include reference to the TEA FAQ which recognizes that schools can grant opt out notices.

Updated 1/25/22 – Sometimes the schools will respond to your opt out notice by telling you that they can’t exempt you or grant permission to opt out.  You respond by telling them that you were not asking their permission and you expect them not to interfere with your parental decisions.  The letter also references clear directions to the schools about how to handle refusals.

Some schools continue to place students into full period STAAR prep classes if they have not passed their assessments, or appear close to passing or mastering STAAR.  It’s all about the scores, because the schools rip kids out of electives to do this.  This letter demands removal of your child from full period STAAR prep.

Beginning in February 2022, the TEA has volunteered Texas students to act as free labor for the testing contractors to create a new generation of STAAR assessments.  To do this they will be “field testing” various forms of the assessment on Texas students.  And contrary to law, they will not let parents see the assessment instruments.

Use this letter to Opt Out of STAAR field testing.  Unlike the Spring administrations, where the schools read the opt out provision differently than we do, there is no colorable legal basis to deny field test opt outs.

The TEA requires that districts submit refused assessments for scoring (not absences–actual refusals).  Obviously, we view this as falsification of data, as it creates a record of participation and assigns the lowest scaled score to the student.  FERPA permits a parent to place a corrective statement in their student’s records which must be made available with the scores.  However, a request for correction is the first step.  This letter will meet that requirement.

If you have had an Opt Out denied and your child has been removed from or denied access to electives, athletics, recess or other physical activities, use this letter to advise the school to restore all electives.  PLEASE NOTE: all our forms require you to customize them to your situation.  Custom areas are in [brackets] and are usually self-explanatory.

If you are unable to download using the Download Manager, you may use this direct link.  PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THE DIRECT LINK.

This letter opts your child out of HB 4545 accelerated instruction for the upcoming school year.  It should be delivered to the school before the staff reports back for the fall (although there is no deadline).  I recommend you wait until all summer instruction has ended, so their full attention is on the fall.

If for some reason the download does not work, use this direct link, but please DO NOT SHARE THE DIRECT LINK.

This short letter is all you need to advise the school that your child will not be participating in HB 4545 summer school.

We will provide an additional letter for the fall. Use this letter only for the summer school notices.

Note: if you are unable to download from this page, use this link.  DO NOT SHARE THE LINK.

This letter is updated to include reference to the TEA FAQ which recognizes that schools can grant opt out notices.

Some schools continue to place students into full period STAAR prep classes if they have not passed their assessments, or appear close to passing or mastering STAAR.  It’s all about the scores, because the schools rip kids out of electives to do this.  This letter demands removal of your child from full period STAAR prep.