- San Juan Unified School District officials show no sign
of yielding in their truancy case against a home-schooling family and,
to the contrary, are taking steps to crack down on all home-schooling.
Joseph Tucker, the district coordinator of the Student Attendance Review
Board plans to address the issue with state education officials next month,
seeking to reform and clarify California compulsory education laws,
according
to the Sacramento Bee. A call to Tucker was not returned.
-
- As WorldNetDaily reported last month, Tucker referred
the case of Sandra and David Sorensen to the Sacramento County district
attorney's office for prosecution. The Sorensens face up to one year in
jail if found guilty of "contributing to the delinquency of a
minor."
To Tucker, who enforces state compulsory attendance laws, the Sorensen's
10-year-old son has been truant since January when the couple decided to
home-school, formally withdrawing him from Carmichael Elementary
School.
-
- "It seems that once you enroll a child in the San
Juan School District they think he's a possession for life," Sandra
Sorensen told WorldNetDaily.
-
- Sorensen claims her son, who suffers from Attention
Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder, was being harassed at school to the point of
damaging
his well-being. She cites an unusual policy of children giving suspensions
to other children. Sorensen says her son began bringing home green cards
apparently filled out by children and signed by a teacher and the principal
in October. By December, the 10-year-old was coming home with numerous
suspensions each day and, as a result, suffered a loss of
self-esteem.
-
- According to Sorensen, when she informed the school that
she had decided to remove her son from the "unhealthy
environment"
and home-school, Carmichael principal Deborah Kraus made numerous threats
in person and over the telephone to her over the decision. Kraus did not
return calls seeking comment, and her assistant referred "questions
regarding the Sorensen case" to Tucker. Sorensen sees Tucker's pursuit
of the case, including his request for a copy of her "appropriate
business license," Department of Justice fingerprint certification,
and a copy of her Bachelors Degree and college transcripts as a
continuation
of the school's harassment.
-
- "By law I'm required to fully and impartially
investigate
any complaints in regards to truancy and to verify whether or not if in
fact the student is truant," Tucker maintains, and stated the
requested
documentation was to help him "ascertain that this is indeed a private
school." California education code does not address home-schooling
and is considered by the state to be "unauthorized."
-
- The compulsory education law which dates back to 1874
requires "each person between 6 and 18 years of age to attend public
full-time day school ... unless legally exempt." Carolyn Pirillo,
a deputy general counsel in the state department of education lists the
exemptions as attendance at a private, full-time day school, education
via a credentialed tutor or independent study through the public school
district.
-
- Private schools are neither regulated nor monitored by
the state, and are not required to comply with public school district
standards.
And because the education code doesn't specifically define what a private
school is, many families have elected to set up private schools within
their homes. The Sorensens have done just that, filing an affidavit, called
the R-4, required by private schools with the state. Tucker told the
Sacramento
Bee that receipt of the affidavit by the county is not an endorsement of
a private school, and until the issue is sorted out, there can't be a gap
in a student's enrollment in public school.
-
- The law does not require that private school instructors
hold a teaching credential, but they must be "capable of
teaching."
Because the "wording is vague, the law is subject to debate,"
Tucker is quoted by the Bee as saying. "They're going to try to get
my R-4 annulled and then try to prosecute me. That's not fair. I've
followed
the letter of the law and they're bullying us," Sorensen
complains.
-
- "What the district is doing is embellishing
[education
code] to read into the statute what is not there ... to keep families from
home schooling," says Will Rogers, an attorney retained by the
California
Homeschool Network for the Sorensens. "An R-4 is only a registration
document," Pirillo told WorldNetDaily, "Filing it doesn't
transform
the situation into a private school. A parent is not a private
school."
-
- Pirillo disagrees that the law is vague. "Teachers
in the public school system and private tutors are required by law to hold
teaching credentials. Tutors or parents without credentials can't declare
themselves private schools to avoid the requirements. If everybody in the
state said 'I'm a tutor without a credential so I'm a private school' then
what would be the point in requiring a credential of a tutor?" Pirillo
adds that case law dating back to 1953 shows the courts interpreting the
legislation requiring tutors to be credentialed as "not
meaningless."
Pirillo cites People v. Turner and In re Shinn as two published appellate
court rulings that reject the concept that parents may call their own home
instruction program a "private school" in order to avoid the
credential requirement.
-
- As the San Juan Unified School district officials build
their legal case against the Sorensens and seek law reform and
clarification
from the state, Sandra Sorensen asks "Why go to this length? Should
I give in and give up my rights to see how my son gets educated because
that's what they want?"
-
- Carol Guardia, a former child welfare and attendance
coordinator for Sacramento County insists district officials are merely
looking out for the educational welfare of the students. "For every
competent home-schooler out there, there are 300 who are not, using it
for an excuse to keep their kids home," Guardia told WorldNetDaily.
"There are hundreds of thousands that are 'home-schooling.' What would
be involved in pulling these kids in? It would be a police state."
A "police state" is precisely what home-school advocates fear,
and what the Sorensens feel they're getting a taste of. "I think at
this point they're not going to stop until they get what they want,"
says Sandra Sorensen. "I hadn't considered a lawsuit against the
school
district. But now we're considering it."
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