MikeG
Senior Member.
Natural News offered this headline last week:
Parents now being thrown in jail in America for homeschooling their children
The claim here is pretty simple: The American police state is unjustly persecuting the “hapless, helpless citizen.” It is another example of the good versus evil story that is pretty common among conspiracy theorists.
Natural News derived most of the story from a post by the Home School Legal Defense Association.
A closer look reveals that no one has gone to jail. In fact, the story involves two sets of parents who failed to comply with state law regarding home schooling.
So what is the law? I looked into the “labyrinth of rules, regulations and mandates, the amount of which is impossible to know, let alone comply with,” according to Natural News.
It took about five minutes to find the Ohio Department of Education website with specific guidelines on home schooling. They seemed pretty clear to me.
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Quality-School-Choice/Home-Schooling
The Ohio Home School Law is also readily available online
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Quality-School-Choice/Home-Schooling
The same is true for the relevant Ohio Code.
http://codes.ohio.gov/oac/3301-34
The code says this about truancy:
The parents involved clearly violated the law, exceeding “chronic” truancy by weeks, not days. It is unclear as to when school officials made written inquiries regarding the students’ absence, although it may have been difficult to actually find children who were not registered in school in the first place.
There are other remedies besides jail time for what is a misdemeanor. We’ll have to wait and see.
Parents now being thrown in jail in America for homeschooling their children
http://www.naturalnews.com/052940_homeschooling_Ohio_nanny_state.html(NaturalNews) America the police state has become a labyrinth of rules, regulations and mandates, the amount of which is impossible to know, let alone comply with.But you know, that ol' "ignorance of the law is no excuse" excuse wielded by faceless, un-elected bureaucrats wins out every time against the hapless, helpless citizen. In fact, some Americans cynically believe that rules are nearly impossible to comply with, and that they are written that way on purpose so as to justify the size, scope and power of the state.
The claim here is pretty simple: The American police state is unjustly persecuting the “hapless, helpless citizen.” It is another example of the good versus evil story that is pretty common among conspiracy theorists.
Natural News derived most of the story from a post by the Home School Legal Defense Association.
A closer look reveals that no one has gone to jail. In fact, the story involves two sets of parents who failed to comply with state law regarding home schooling.
http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/oh/201602020.aspEven though both families continued to educate their children, their school districts decided to treat the children as “truant.” The schools also waited to contact the families until the children had accumulated more than a month of “absences,” instead of addressing the issue when the school began marking the children “absent.”
As soon as both families realized their errors, they took action to comply with their districts’ demands. After filing the paperwork, both families received a letter from their superintendent verifying that their homeschool program is in compliance with state law for the 2015-2016 school year. Then they brought criminal charges against the parents.
The criminal charge is “contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” a first-degree misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of up to $1,000 in fines and up to six months in the county jail. Each day that a child is “truant” can be considered a separate offense.
So what is the law? I looked into the “labyrinth of rules, regulations and mandates, the amount of which is impossible to know, let alone comply with,” according to Natural News.
It took about five minutes to find the Ohio Department of Education website with specific guidelines on home schooling. They seemed pretty clear to me.
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Quality-School-Choice/Home-Schooling
The Ohio Home School Law is also readily available online
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Quality-School-Choice/Home-Schooling
The same is true for the relevant Ohio Code.
http://codes.ohio.gov/oac/3301-34
The code says this about truancy:
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2152.02(D) "Chronic truant" means any child of compulsory school age who is absent without legitimate excuse for absence from the public school the child is supposed to attend for seven or more consecutive school days, ten or more school days in one school month, or fifteen or more school days in a school year.
The parents involved clearly violated the law, exceeding “chronic” truancy by weeks, not days. It is unclear as to when school officials made written inquiries regarding the students’ absence, although it may have been difficult to actually find children who were not registered in school in the first place.
There are other remedies besides jail time for what is a misdemeanor. We’ll have to wait and see.