Mother being prosecuted for homeschooling children

arbilad · Head Chef

Mother being prosecuted for homeschooling children

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

I don't get it. There are lot's of people who homeschool, what right does a school have to take such an action? What choice did the mother have? It's ridiculous.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

There are always two sides to the story, and WND has a great reputation for only telling one and misrepresenting the other, IMHO.

Is it possible that this mother did not follow the proper legal due process for withdrawing her children from the school? Is it possible that the school has a legit case in making the complaint that she will not be able to educate them adequately (as in maybe she is a single mother who works and is the family's sole breadwinner)?

Just ideas...

-- Edited by Cat Herder at 12:40, 2007-10-17

TitusTodd · Senior Member

I agree with Cat Herder's points. I would like to have the other side of the story or some kind of response from the school.

arbilad · Head Chef

Cat Herder wrote:

There are always two sides to the story, and WND has a great reputation for only telling one and misrepresenting the other, IMHO.

Cat, when making such a statement, please back it up with examples. Otherwise it's just libel. WND has a tendency for reporting stuff that others don't. Many other news sources later pick up stories that they report first.

Besides, if HSLDA has offered to represent her, they feel that she has a good case. They don't represent people, even members of their organization, who get into trouble for good reason (such as actual abuse or neglect).

-- Edited by arbilad at 12:43, 2007-10-17

beefche · Profuse Pontificator

I'd love to hear the other side of the story. I'm wondering why this mother never reported these incidents to the police, contacted someone higher than the school's officials, and it took her years of abuse to pull her kids out of that school.

arbilad · Head Chef

You all are reacting as if this is something so far out of the ordinary that you should automatically be skeptical. I get the updates from HSLDA on the cases they are trying. This sort of thing is very common, if not necessarily to this degree. Many districts require information that they have no legal right to from homeschoolers. Many make complaints about parents pulling their child from school to homeschool them.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

Yeah, some areas are pretty hostile to homeschoolers. I'm with ya, Arbi. I've come across a lot of incidents of the schools gunning for (figuratively) homeschoolers. In my limited knowledge, (so this is opinion!) I'd say less than 5%ish are even slightly founded in justifable cause.

In Colorado I had to document my oldest's learning difficulties very carefully so that they couldn't say I wasn't educating him well enough when it came time for those mandatory tests.

I would like to hear both sides of the story, but from what I've seen other places I would not be surprised if the side we've heard thus far is pretty accurate. We might not ever get the whole story, though.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Arbi, do you believe that homeschoolers are victims of public school bullies?

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

arbilad wrote:

Cat Herder wrote:

There are always two sides to the story, and WND has a great reputation for only telling one and misrepresenting the other, IMHO.

Cat, when making such a statement, please back it up with examples. Otherwise it's just libel. WND has a tendency for reporting stuff that others don't. Many other news sources later pick up stories that they report first.
Besides, if HSLDA has offered to represent her, they feel that she has a good case. They don't represent people, even members of their organization, who get into trouble for good reason (such as actual abuse or neglect).

-- Edited by arbilad at 12:43, 2007-10-17

Well, the article did only represent the mother's side of the story. And Cat did say "IMHO."
And he also said he was just throwing out ideas. Are you saying we should all automatically assume that the school was in the wrong for doing what they did?
Oftentimes newspapers do that in order to gain sympathy for people.

arbilad · Head Chef

There are several potential problems with trying to get the other side in this case:
1) Many schools have a policy of not commenting on pending legal actions.
2) The person who made the actual complaint may have done so on their own initiative, and therefore the school may or may not agree with their reasons. If they don't, they almost certainly wouldn't make public an internal squabble like that.
3) The school's side of the issue just may not be widely publicized.

By and large homeschoolers have no legal problems. But you'd be surprised at some of the huge problems that will be occasionally run into.
I personally have no problem believing that the kids were bullied and the schools ignored it. I have experienced the same thing when I was in public school (although not to this degree). And it is possible that the mother despaired of going to the police if she believed that the police would accept the school's version of events.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

I don't mean to sound like I'm taking sides here... over the months I've just learned to not always take whatever WND states as 100% gospel truth any more than I do any other source.

arbilad · Head Chef

BTW, I reread the article and came across an interesting bit of text:

Multiple telephone messages left with officials at the school district were not returned.
They did try to get the other side. But I could find no news story, or anything on the school's or the district's website, concerning this. So, don't criticize for not including the other side when it's not available and not offered by that side.

beefche · Profuse Pontificator

Holy cow, arbi. I'm not reading anyone as criticizing this story or anything. Everyone has said it would be interesting to hear the other side. I certainly don't expect to hear from the school administrators--privacy issues and all. I'm with Cat on this one...I just noticed some things that didn't jive with me and also know that the media can write a story in any way they want to promote any agenda.

Valhalla · Profuse Pontificator

Remember also what we talked about in another thread in which many school districts get money based on attendance, therefore fewer students equals less money for the school from the state. Schools have a vested interest in keeping students in the school, home schooing hurts a school's bottom line.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Definitely so, Val... but for the sake of balance, that I think was the point of some skepticism... WND has a vested interest in demonstrating that public education is failing and that homeschoolers are victims--misunderstood and ostracized from mainstream society--that you can't get social justice if you try to follow your conscience rather than the status quo public services.

This sort of story is the bread and butter of WND.

--Ray

Randy · Senior Member

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58170

Good news for the family. But the revelation that home school families are arbitrarily selected for such charges is bad news for freedom-loving people.

lundbaek · Profuse Pontificator

Several months ago a girl in Germany was removed from her home because of objections on the part of some education and social work officials to her being home schooled.

I know several families in Arizona and Utah who have homeschooled their kids or are doing so now. Nearly all are LDS.

See  www.thenewamerican.com/node/192
www.thenewamerican.com/node/193
www.thenewamerican.com/node/1590

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

From what I understand, homeschooling is illegal in Germany.

We have a family in our ward who are currently ex-patriot on a work assignment in Germany. They are having to come early because they home school their kids, and were unaware that it was against the law to do so in Germany. I'm not sure if the whole family is coming back (they were planning on coming home for the Holidays in December anyway), or if it is just the mother and daughters coming in a week or so for a couple months until they can get the situation rectified and figure out how to enroll them in some sort of program (American School or the equivalent) in Germany next calender year.

I'm sure we'll find out as the older daughter is one of our daughters good friends.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

I know a lot of parents who consider homeschooling once their children start to exhibit their free will to follow the trends set by the world.

crazymom5 · Senior Member

I tend to believe the parent in this case because we also pulled one of our daughters out of school to home school her after all my attempts to get the school to stop the bullying that she was enduring ALL day long failed. She was in middle school at the time and there were kids in every class, girls and boys, that physically and verbally bullied her. Every time I went to the school the bullying got worse. The bullies didn't care about getting in trouble, they were never suspended or punished in any way, even with teachers coming forward and backing up my daughter. The teachers' hands were tied due to district policies in dealing with this stuff. Since we were already home schooling our 2 oldest we pulled our daughter out mid year to come home.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

I've a good friend who homeschooled her daughter through middleschool because of the way her peers treated her.

TitusTodd · Senior Member

With the enrollment of my son's first year at Middle School, some general information was provided to the parents. One of the items included was a sheet of paper on bullying. The tips were for the parents of a child being bullied as if it is that child's fault rather than the one doing the bullying. I would like to have seen some comments aimed towards the parents of the bullies and the consequences of such behavior. Perhaps they figured the parents of bullies do not read such things and if they do they deny their child is an offender?

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

I actually like the approach that TT's middle school takes, because it allows the bullied child to have some control, instead of giving them the impression that unless *someone else* changes their behavior, their life will always suck. It lets them know they have some power even though there will always be bullies.