New Jersey Judge Orders Penal Charges Against Mom for Home-Schooling
BevK March 8th, 2007
This article just makes me mad.
Honorable Thomas Zampino of the Family Division of the New Jersey Superior Court has ordered penal charges against a home-schooling mother of seven. According to a report by Matt Bowman on the website constitutionallycorrect.com, the mother’s supposed infraction is home-schooling her children without supervision from the local school board - a right explicitly upheld in New Jersey law.
As you read on in the article, you discover that this family homeschooled, but once the parents separated the father decided it wasn’t what he wanted for his kids and has been using the courts against her.
In an effort to implement “certain basic requirements and safeguards”, the judge ordered Tara to submit her home-schooling children to standardized tests supplied by the local school district despite NJ law which says, “A child educated elsewhere than at school is not required to sit for a state or district standardized test.”
The judge also ordered the local school board to file a suit against Tara in order to be able to “evaluate the instruction in the home,” a requirement only permissible if the local school board determines that there is credible evidence that the home education is below the standards of the public school.
Because of NJ’s explicit laws protecting the parental right to educate their children at home, the judge had only limited options when it came to personally implementing his philosophies of “monitoring” and “registering” home-schoolers.” The judge cautioned that, should the school board refuse to comply with his ’suggestions’, the court would “consider, by formal opinion, a request to join those parties to action.”
It boggles my mind that the judge can do this. I can only imagine what he would have done if the law hadn’t put some restrictions on his actions. Read some of his remarks, and you’ll find the whole thing both maddening and a bit scary. Passing good homeschool laws is important in every state.
