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Home Schooling Cases
by Atty. Michael H. Agranoff
Rex and Shannon
Rex and Shannon have a warm rural home with lots of land. They have five
beautiful children and are both gainfully employed. They have perfect records as
citizens and are thoroughly decent people. They even thought of being foster
parents to autistic children, and had someone from DMR (the Connecticut
Department of Mental Retardation) visit their home.
The problem? After hearing the DMR representative, they changed their minds
about having autistic children. The DMR representative had an irritating
personality. Also, like
virtually all State employees, he was annoyed that Rex and Shannon home-schooled
their children. Even though home schooling is perfectly legal, and the couple
followed all the rules, State employees have a prejudice against home-schooling.
The legality of this action makes no difference to them.
The DMR employee reported that Rex and Shannon were "weird", that their home
schooling was inadequate, and that their home was unsafe. The “unsafe
conditions” turned out to be the fact that they had a carpenter, with a valid
Connecticut home improvement contractor’s license, making repairs to their
house.
Shameless!
DCF called Rex and Shannon to investigate this “referral.” DCF wanted the couple
to sign a Service Agreement, saying that they would keep the kids safe, and,
among other things, that there would be no alcohol or drugs in the home. They
called me, and we set up a home visit.
I walked the DCF investigator through the home, and she was satisfied that there
was no problem. I also explained, patiently but firmly, the law of home
schooling. I also explained that there was absolutely no law against adults
drinking wine, beer, or liquor, so long as they were not intoxicated or
otherwise unable to fulfill their responsibilities. She changed the Service
Agreement to say “no alcohol or drug abuse.”
Rex and Shannon were devout Christians who home-schooled their kids for obvious
reasons. I know what happy and well-adjusted children look like, and they were
it. The DCF investigator left, somewhat embarrassed.
All was well, and they were, obviously, unsubstantiated. However, it could have
gone wrong. The couple was justifiably angry at this bogus referral, but I had
to explain that under the law, in current practice, there was nothing they could
do. The couple was also upset that they had to sign a Service Agreement not to
neglect their kids or expose them to danger, which they had never done and never
would do. Nonetheless, I smoothed it over. Sometimes this anger leads to ugly
incidents and to substantiations, as described elsewhere on this web site.
Perhaps next time DCF will be more selective in the referrals that it
investigates. Who knows? One lesson is for home-schoolers to beware: you are on
the State unfavored list.
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