On June 1, 2009, Governor Phil Bredesen signed HB 0431 into law. The bill, which takes effect immediately, requires that diplomas issued by church related schools or home schools be recognized by all state and local governmental entities as having the same rights and privileges of diplomas issued by public school systems.

Passage of this bill remedies a policy where state agencies (police forces, childcares, etc.) refused to recognize diplomas offered by Cat IV Church Related Schools. Graduates with these diplomas who were employed by, or were applying for jobs in these agencies were told that they would have to surrender their diplomas and get a GED (General Educational Development Certificate). Since the majority of home-educated students in the state are registered with Cat. IV schools, refusal to recognize Cat. IV diplomas was a major threat to home educators who receive diplomas from Cat. IV. schools.

Representative Mike Bell, home school father and sponsor of HB 0431, said that it might take state agencies some time to get word of the bill's passage. If you are having difficulty with acceptance of a Category IV diploma, you may want to direct employers to contact the Tennessee Department of Education for clarification of problems related to Cat. IV diplomas.

Accreditation by state governmental agency is an administrative mechanism designed as an attempt to attain uniform education for all children in government schools. It was established as a governmental means of causing local public school districts to meet what the state educational agencies determined to be minimum academic and facility standards for all schools. Accreditation teams, therefore, investigate and approve or disapprove facilities and curriculum in educational institutions according to the criteria developed by secular educational administrators who may not be Christians.

Accreditation of a private Christian school is not necessary for a graduate of that school to enroll in most colleges and universities. Registrars of such institutions are interested in the academic merits of individual students, not in the name of their school of graduation. Thus, they evaluate each applicant's academic aptitude through nationally standardized tests. This is why Christian Outreach Academy intends to maintain the highest academic standards.

Although Christian Outreach Academy is not an accredited school, we have students graduating annually and going directly into college. Just as in accredited schools, we do graduate students who also receive scholarships into college. The Tennessee Department of Education has approved Christian Outreach Academy as a "Class IV Church Related Private School."

If an accredited diploma is important to you, C.O.A. has achieved "Quality Status" from A.C.E. This entitles C.O.A. students to dual enroll with an accredited A.C.E. school. Dual enrolled students receive a diploma from both C.O.A. and the accredited A.C.E. school. There is a nominal fee for dual enrollment. The Accelerated Christian Education is used worldwide and is a certified accredited curriculum. Christian Outreach Academy is in compliance with the Tennessee educational standard as confirmed in a memo dated February 18, 1999, from Commissioner Jane Walters, Tennessee State Department of Education, to all school superintendents.

In many states, the Christian Law Association has litigated many cases of discrimination because of non-accredited schools and has found it to be illegal for any such discrimination.