http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/after_irvington_suspected_negl.html Should we accept monitoring of our homes because of neglect and abuse cases in "home-school" settings?
Unfortunate indeed. "We need to know your child exsists" where were the neighbors? Didn't they ever see the children? What about the one that was eating out of their garbage can? What about the phrase on there that said that there isn't any public monitoring by the school system for homeschooled children? ick.
So sad. As much as I'd like to say that neighbors and such should have noticed something, we just don't tend to think like that. When I see other kids, I assume their parents love them as much as I love mine. So sad.
Wow. Wouldn't registering with the school boards as we are required to do in Ontario be enough. That way they would know the children existed but didn't require to intervene in the teaching. Telling parents they need to show the curriculum they are using is letting out all unschoolers or people such as myself who are currently making up our own lesson plans.
How could they not know that a child exists? You can't get out of the hospital with your baby without complete government forms for a birth certificate and a social security card. I don't know about in NJ, but in PA, we have an annual local census on which we report our names and occupations as well as the names and ages of our children. On taxes, you report the number of dependents in your home. Then if you need any type of assistance, they get that info there too. I don't think that it is possible to hide children from the government unless you complete ignore all existing laws.
In our state there aren't enough social workers to check on children that are being REPORTED on as abused but there have been attempts to add a bunch of busy work to the understaffed office of child services. I haven't seen many cases of abuse but the few I ran into awhile back involved children that were in public correspondence programs. I'm not saying these programs have anything to do with being abused BUT I am saying that these were the more monitored children and had to report to teachers etc. and the teacher had no idea. They can't as they are shuffling tons of kids through all the hoops. I really think in my state (which probably is like many others) that more funding and staffing needs to go to case workers dealing with known cases and reports not spending all the money monitoring vast numbers of people ineffectively.
@Ochumgache people can a do slip through the cracks. Many babies are born outside of the hospital that arent' reported. Its a sad scary world full of people who harm children. It makes me hug mine all the more :/
Every year when I file my PSA, I am required to list the age and grade of my student. The system is also aware of where we live through Public Health. You better believe they keep up on who is vaccinated and not vaccinated. I received two forms that my child wasn't up to date on vaccines. It was an error in reporting on the doctors side. But the health department had no problem contacting me and informing me of the vaccines my child was required to have.
My kids could probably have slipped through the cracks without much effort on my part as we had a home birth. Public health also doesn't track children who aren't in the school system. Northernmomma - I didn't know we were required to register with the school board in Ontario! What about private school kids? Or kids who are never in school at all? I don't recall anyone every saying I *had* to register my kids, just that if I wanted them in public school I needed to do it before a certain date.
Here they "keep track" of students who aren't in the school system. They know Ems is homeschooled through her doctor and through the PSA; that is to say that we are required to keep a current record of vaccines on hand.
@MegCanada you only HAVE to if you have had them in school. Check with the Ontario Federation of Teaching Parents. They have the details listed in PP13? Its simple to do though. And usually the school board doesn't bother with us even when we don't file the paper saying we are going to. Although I know a couple of parents who have gotten a letter from the board asking if they are still homeschooling to please file their papers. Its basically a paper with your name, address, name of kids, date of birth and it states you are going to homeschool. I think they just like to track whose who.
Interesting! I took my son out at the end of senior kindergarten and all I did was tell his classroom teacher that we'd be homeschooling. We never heard from the school again. Then I took my daughter out in October of her third grade year, and all the principal wanted was a "letter of intent". Basically we wrote on a piece of paper, "We'll be homeschooling our daughter from this point forward." Signed and dated it and gave it to the office. We never heard from them again, either. So that must have been the form you're talking about.
Yup the letter of intent should techinically be filed at the beginning of every school year with the local school board. But like I said they usually don't make a big deal out of it.
It's sad and really puts a damper on the good homeschooling families out there. It's sad they are wanting to make tougher laws because of the familes who are not home schooling. IMO they hide behinde 'Home schooling' so they can continue the abuse they give their children. I would hate to be in the law making area trying to make everyone happy, you just cannot do it. I like my freedom to do what I do with my family. I do understand to why they are trying to change the laws. I am okay with yearly testing, and a list of subjects needed to be taught during the school year. I am not okay with the state telling me what I can and cannot use for my school. I don't think I'd have a problem with the physical either. As long as I can use my MD and not a MD they pick My kids go yearly as it is. Well now they don't. I was told they were all good to go until we leave.
Me too. I really, really enjoy being in a "free state" where we can do whatever we want with our kids. For us, that's been great, and I know a lot of other homeschooling families who are doing wonderful things with their kids. Unfortunately, there are families that do nothing with their kids. Quite literally. In those cases, we want the government to step in and do something about it - but how would that work? It's a tough question and a hard balance to find.
I live in a state that requires only that we register as homeschoolers. The information asked for on the form is simple, name, address, phone number, email (optional, but they do send out informative emails to homeschoolers), and names of siblings. This to me should be enough to accomplish their goal of "knowing your child exists". I would have a huge problem with the state tracking my curriculum and my children's test scores. Personally I think it's a good thing to have us as homeschoolers registered with the state, but it would be imo an invasion of my privacy and my rights as a homeschooler to insist that I provide my curriculum for approval. It is my right as a mother to decide what to teach my children and when.
I just don't see how making people register or take their child for yearly physicals would accomplish their goal. The people who are hiding behind the label of homeschooling to be free to abuse their children aren't going to comply with the law anyway. It would just make one more hoop for the rest of us to jump through.
If my children are not going to be in the public school system, why do they even need to know my children exist? Exactly!!!! The Collingswood case (the one in which the children were emaciated and eating out of the garbage), is a notorious case here in NJ. This happened just prior to our moving to the state, and there are constantly threats to homeschool freedom because of it. The article really didn't go into detail about that case. The kids were all involved with DYFS (social services), and they were supposed to be following the kids. The parents pulled their kids out of school, because they wanted to hide abuse, mind you some of these kids were still in the foster system, and the DYFS social workers evidently falsified reports about visits to the family. If they had gone to the house, there was no way they could have missed the fact that these kids were starving: http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/stories/20031026_childabuse_collingswood_dyfs.html These kids were not only known to the state, they were already in the system, and DYFS failed them! Makes me furious. This family wasn't ever a homeschooling family. -case in point- Honest homeschoolers will of course abide by the laws, in the event that they impose restrictions on us, this won't do anything to help children like the ones talked about in the article. Makes me sick! By the way, we were not even able to adopt from DYFS, because we are a homeschooling family. They won't have anything to do with homeschooling families now, because of their own failure. We adopted our children from NY.
It sounds like the 8 yr. old girl was also known to the state. The Godparents of the child had attempted to get custody of her through the courts, and failed. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/for_a_sweet_girl_a_short_life.html So what on earth does any of this have to do with homeschooling? Nothing. Weinberg just really wants to regulate homeschooling. It seems like the state is already failing enough children, failing schools, kids falling through the cracks in DYFS, and they want to follow homeschooled kids too. ...:shock:
We should NOT monitor -- public schooled kids are just as abused, and even then teachers or other parents don't do anything. Singling out one group because they elect an alternative form of education is akin to discrimination. Would we say that African American families/Jewish Families/Native American families/homosexual families need to be watched? No, so why say "homeschool families"? There is a HUGE difference between "not enrolling your child in school" and "homeschooling." One does not have any accountability, while the other has accountability to the family and to God. To say it is not an education issue only makes it worse. If the government feels the need to "watch" one group, they will soon feel the need to watch them all, then Helloooooo Big Brother! (getting off soapbox now! Thank you for your time!
