Radiofree West Hartford - IS YOUR CHILD A HOSTAGE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM? By Judy Aron

IS YOUR CHILD A HOSTAGE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM?

By Judy Aron

March 08, 2006

Connecticut's educational establishment's latest attack on parents' rights to educate their children includes an agenda to make it more difficult to withdraw your child from public school. Conditional withdrawal is now the policy of the State Department of Education. Their policy indicates that you cannot withdraw your child from public school without their approval first, and they may demand that you do certain things, or sign certain documents, before they will release your child from enrollment.

Although parents always have had the right to withdraw their children from school at any time, for any reason, the state Department of Education has now informed school districts that the school districts have the authority to keep children officially as "enrolled" even after parents have sent in letters withdrawing their child. If the child remains enrolled and does not attend school, the school district and the courts can claim the child is truant. If a child is adjudicated as truant and the child and family fail to do as ordered by the school and the courts, then the family can be considered either a "family with service needs" or as "neglectful". If the family still does not comply with whatever is being demanded, a petition could be filed seeking state custody of the child. The State Department of Education and DCF are working together to make it more difficult to withdraw your child, and they are using coercive tactics to make parents do things that are not even required by law.

Right now, there are many CT families that have experienced this rampant abuse of authority. These are families who wanted to withdraw their children from school in order to homeschool them. They were told, even though they filed a formal letter of withdrawal, that unless they signed a notice of intent form, or unless they "registered" their children with the school district as homeschoolers, or unless they agreed to have the district review their children's curriculum and progress, or unless they signed an official document for DCF swearing that they will homeschool their children "properly", they would be considered truant or educationally neglectful. This is clearly an effort to block parents from pursuing homeschooling as an educational option. It is coercion, which is illegal in this state, and it constitutes a pure abuse of authority. They were being commanded to provide things that are not required by law, and have their children taken from them if they didn't comply.

Parents have begun to take steps to stop this abuse by asking the legislature to tell school districts, and the State Department of Education, in no uncertain terms that once a parent notifies the school district that they are withdrawing their children from school that the school district must accept that withdrawal unconditionally. Representative Arthur O'Neill wrote a letter to the legislature's Education Committee, and asked them to raise a bill requiring school districts to accept the withdrawal of a student upon notification by a parent.

The Education Committee, co-chaired by Senator Tom Gaffey (D) and Representative Andrew Fleischmann (D), have decided for a second session in a row to ignore that parents in this state are being harassed and coerced into complying with the will of the educational establishment which has now created conditional withdrawal. Representative Andrew Fleischmann, after promising us he'd fix the problem, refused to raise the bill last session and then blocked its passage when it was offered as an amendment on another bill.

Why are the co-chairs of this Education Committee allowing this coercive activity to continue? It is time that CT parents know that their children could be held hostage in the public school system. Apparently it will be o.k. for the school system to require anything from you - even mental health assessments - if you decide to withdraw your child from school. If you feel this is an affront to your parental rights, then you should contact your legislator and the Education Committee in particular, and demand that this be rectified this session. Every child has a right to public education, but public education does not have the right to every child.

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Deborah Stevenson is the Executive Director of the National Home Education Legal Defense, a national organization that seeks to protect and defend the rights of families who wish to educate in freedom. She can be reached at info@nheld.com

Judy Aron is the Director of Research of the National Home Education Legal Defense.