Sean's death will bring about changes Why does this become a homeschooling issue rather just being than a foster care/adoption-abuse issue? Should ALL homeschoolers be put under scrutiny because this poor four year old child died after he had been under the state's watchful eye and he showed signs of abuse that were ignored?
How sad. Looks like most of the "tightening" is in the CPS system but yeah, it could definitely effect the NC HS regs (which are pretty unrestrictive from what I understand).
It is an adoption/foster issue, they just like to throw the homeschooling in there. Like parents who have their kids in public school never abuse or kill them. Last year there was a 15 year old that killed his parents then his best friend and it was brought up over and over that he was homeschooled, like that was the cause of his problems. People just fear what they don't understand and like to place the blame on those fears.
What I think is sad, is that when PUBLIC-schooled children are abused or behind in their education (which is what, 60% or more), there is no SPS (School Protective Services) to intervene - and more school kids are abused and killed each year (the ratio for comparison is HUGE) than is found in the homeschool community! But are school taken to task for their failures? Nope! Once again, Irony, how great thou art!! (tongue in cheek!)
I agree. It seems that the state has this ideology that parents cannot be trusted and that all children should be under the state's wing, but those being abused, sometimes worse than they endured by their own parents, while under the state's wing have nowhere to go.
I only noticed one mention of homeschooling in the article. "Through Sean's life and death, the State Child Fatality Review Team found weaknesses in the way the state keeps track of homeschooled families, how it assesses families wanting to adopt foster children and how reports of child abuse against adoptive parents ought to be dealt with." This doesn't even make sense because as a 4 year old, he wouldn't have been officially homeschooled (in NC you don't register until the child is 7) and wouldn't even have been in the public school system yet anyway. (If what they meant to imply is that he would have been better "monitored" there.) If they meant to imply that if any older children they had could have been monitored in public school to raise a flag to problems in the home thereby preventing this tragedy...that doesn't make sense either. Does that mean parents with no children can't adopt because they don't have children in public school to "prove" they aren't abusive? To me, this is like blaming an entire town because one of its residents commits a crime. They might as well have written: Through Sean's life and death, the State Child Fatality Review Team found weaknesses in the way the state keeps track of people who drive tan cars. The fault lies with the parents, not the homeschool community.
I agree with all that has already been said. This is not a homeschool issue. Many kids in under the school system are abused everyday and they never catch it. Very sad.
It is insane to even mention homeschooling because here in NC you are not even to report them until they are 7. The NCHE is working with legislators to nip this in the bud. Apparently there was a death in another hsing family in another county as well.
To me this is just another article that has thrown 'homeschooling' in just because they can. There seem to many articles out there that are suppose to be about homeschooling and after you read them, it's like and you mentioned homeschooling because?
Did I miss in the article exactly how this child died? While I don't know much about this particular case, I'd like to comment about the paragraph where it mentions the kids being coached to answer a certain way. After my experience, you better believe I've told my kids what to say when asked certain questions. It's because these delusional social workers can't relate to the real world of parenting. For example, even though my kids bathe about 3 times a week, I told them to say that they bathe every day if asked. What a shame that homeschoolers who adopt or foster will come under extra scrutiny. When will people realize that it is the rarity for people to use homeschooling as a cover-up and that the REALITY is that people who HS are doing so because they feel that much more dedicated to their role as a parent.
