<P> In order to be licensed as a proprietary school within New York State, organizations must undergo a licensing process wherein they submit various documents, including: an application for a school license, proof of type of ownership (e.g., sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation), financial documents, curriculum applications, and school prepared forms . </P> <P> In 2009, the New York's Bureau of Proprietary School Supervision abruptly changed its policy on regulating yoga studio training and threatened those organization with a criminal fine of up to $50,000, although the department noted that they had received zero complaints about subpar yoga training . Until that point, no yoga studio in the state had ever applied for or received a license to train future yoga instructors, which was the alleged crime . Yoga studios were forced to undergo a "nightmarish" application process which put some smaller yoga studios at risk of shutting down permanently, since the process could take up to a year . The initiative was criticized, and the Bureau of Proprietary School Supervision was forced to abandon this tactic after New York Governor David Paterson signed a bill into law exempting yoga studios from the licensing process . </P>

New york state education department bureau of proprietary school supervision