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Well, I want to congratulate you on watching this video because this is definitely diving deep into the details for reimbursement. We’re looking at a document called the Standards for Home Education Reimbursement, and you can download that document if you want to read along with me. You’ll find that downloaded just below with this video on the website. In this document, which we in the home ed community refer to as “the Standards,” is from Alberta Education, as you’ll see if you were to to download and look at it. And this document seeks to, I guess, put some boundaries or explanations on paper as to how home ed programs can reimburse families’ purchases. So this document tries to lay out a standard by which we can, a standard by which we’ve, what am I saying, the standards that we follow when we try to determine whether or not a home ed family’s request for reimbursement is eligible or not.

So you would think that could be a very simple process; however, that’s not really the case because as you’ll see, the standards document, in my opinion, really doesn’t give us a standard at all. The name says it’s a standard, but it’s really not a standard, and I’ll make my case right here at the beginning because on page three it says, “Whether a particular cost may be reimbursed,” which means whether a particular item is eligible or not, “depends on whether it’s required by each student’s program. This means that what is reimbursable for one student may not necessarily be reimbursable for another.” So to me, that is not a standard. If it’s good for Johnny, Alberta Ed is saying it may not be good for Susie. So that’s to me is not a standard, and that really makes things confusing. And that’s, I’m getting ahead of myself, but I’ll let you know where I stand right up front on this document because I do believe it’s a very, it’s not a helpful document despite the name of the document being a standard.

So Alberta Ed has referred to, rightfully referred back to, the home ed regulation to determine these eligibility requirements and criteria, and they have made the, pretty much what is a run-on sentence in the home ed regulation, which gives two examples of what is reimbursable and one example of what is not reimbursable. So they make that one sentence into a four-document policy guide, and they divide that one statement from the home ed regulation into three parts. They call it determination number one, determination number two, and determination number three. One and two are fine, pretty self-explanatory. It’s the number three, determination number three, that really is confusing because from the regulation where we can see that the home ed funding cannot be used as a form of “personal remuneration or repayment for the parent,” meaning a home ed parent can’t be paid to home educate her own child. That’s what that first line says. And then this is the really confusing one: to pay for, well, the second part is confusing. The first part is very straightforward. You can’t use the home ed funding to pay for “travel costs or, and this is where it gets confusing, other expenses usually required to be paid by a parent of a student who is enrolled in a school operated by a board or private school.”

So this is part of determination number three. When a family calls us and asks can they get reimbursed for such-and-such of a resource, if I have to stop and think about it, it’s because that resource falls into determination number three: “Is this an expense usually required to be paid by a parent of a student who is enrolled in a school operated by a board or private school?” The problem with this current application from the government of the statement here is that really they’re comparing apples to oranges. Home education is completely different. Home education is the only program in Alberta Ed that receives funding that has to go to the parent or guardian. So right away home ed parents are going to be receiving funding in the way of a reimbursement for something that wouldn’t be reimbursed to a parent of a teacher-directed program. And yet that, this determination number three is trying to say that a school program and a home education program are pretty much the same and you have to treat them the same. It’s it’s from very start because of this interpretation, we have problems.

So the rest of the documents here goes on and tries to give examples of what is and isn’t eligible. So I’m not trying to make this more difficult than it needs to be, but parents do oftentimes ask why one resource is, and another one isn’t. And I try to explain to them, you know, why. And admittedly, sometimes what I say doesn’t sound logical or consistent, and I admit that’s true, guilty as charged. It’s not, it’s not consistent, it’s always not it’s not always logical, but I’m dealing with something that is in writing that says what’s, “what’s eligible for one student may not be eligible for another.” So right away we’re dealing with inconsistencies. Another example is with this determination number three, it says you can’t use your home ed funding to pay for something the parent from a teacher-taught student would have to pay for, but that’s not really the case, that’s not true. For example, the most glaring example, which is from the summary of significant changes, which is like an appendix or to the standards, we find that you can, with home ed, you can use your home ed funding for field trips. But in that, in a teacher-taught situation, in a classroom, students usually have to pay for field trips. In home ed, we get to reimburse you for half of your internet costs. Well, students who are attending your local high school can’t bring in to the school office their receipts from Telus and get reimbursed 50%. On the second page, we’re told that a home ed program can reimburse you for ski passes, which means a lift ticket, right, ski lessons, snowboarding lessons. Well, those are fees the family or a parent from a teacher-directed program would have to pay for, so this determination number three is problematic, to say the least.

So I just wanted to let you know the standard by which we determine whether or not a learning material or learning resource is eligible for funding. So if you get an answer back from me or from Natasha or even from Joann that you don’t agree with, please call us. We’d be happy to talk to you about that decision, but just please know the source of that decision and the criteria that we use to try to to base our decisions. So if you do have questions, though, please let us know. We’re not trying to find ways to withhold money from you. It’s your funding; we want to give this funding to you, but these are the rules by which we have to play. I didn’t want to say another one is stealing any thunder from Natasha’s videos, but the easy things to get reimbursed for are textbooks, workbooks, internet, computers, things, you know, the big-ticket items like that. So it’s when we get into the less traditional learning materials that we have to kind of dig into the weeds and do some research on. So hopefully, that’s helpful. Again, let us know if you have any questions.