In the following report, school officials of the high school in Mooresville, Indiana have “dismissed” teens from attending school, and have told the kids’ parents they must homeschool the teens.
Mooresville High School officials criticized over student dismissals, 6 January 2007, Reporter-Times, Martinsville, Indiana
Anna Payton, whose two children were students at Mooresville High School, said both were dismissed from school two weeks into the school year for no apparent reason.
Her son was released from high school for “not making the grade,” and the school signed her daughter out at the same time for no other reason than they were signing her son out, she said.
Payton said during a meeting with Mooresville High School principal Chuck Muston, Chris Urbanowski, a guidance counselor at the high school, told Payton her son should be home-schooled. But with an 11-hour-a-day job, Payton said at first, she couldn’t set aside the time necessary to teach her child.
During the meeting, she told Muston and Urbanowski that she wanted her son to attend an alternative school, but they said that “wasn’t even an option.”
The “requirements” for homeschooling appear at the end of the article, but what isn’t mentioned are the requirements of the Indiana Administrative Code, such as compulsory school attendance.
A quick web search pulls up materials about school expulsions.
- Indiana DoE complaint investigation:
“511 IAC 7-29-6(j) requires the School’s expulsion procedures comply with Indiana statute. IC 208.1-
5.1-21 requires the signatures of the parent and student in order to effect a valid and voluntary waiver of rights with regard to the expulsion of a student.” - IC 20-30-8 Chapter 8. Alternative Program for Certain Students
IC 20-30-8-9 Qualification as eligible student Sec. 9. (a) To qualify as an eligible student, a student must:
(1) be enrolled in or be eligible to be admitted to grades 6 through 12;
…
(4) be likely to benefit:
(A) academically;
(B) behaviorally; or
(C) both academically and behaviorally; from participation in an alternative education program, as jointly determined by the student’s teacher or teachers and principal or principal’s designee, and in consultation with the student’s parent or guardian.
From just this short search, it seems that the Mooresville school hasn’t followed the procedures required by law. Then again, there is always more to the story than the first report indicates.
posted by Valerie
16 October 2008 update: original link is no longer active; Indiana opinion:
HEM
Helen
Tracy
mark
marynix
ann-lahrson-fisher
valerie
sandi
david
Ben Bennett of Indiana Home Educators Network asked me to repost this for him here.
From Ben:
This article is the tip of the iceberg. I’m the Project Coordinator for the
Indiana Home Educators’ Network and we’ve been
receiving mail with hints and direct accusations of this kind of action by
Indiana public schools since the end of the summer.
In Indiana, you don’t need permission from the school district to home
educate your child. Homeschools are non accredited, non public schools.
Parents are supposed to “Report Enrollment” (a simple online form) when they
are asked to do so by the state superintendant of schools. Many parents I
know, have never been asked… so the enrollment numbers at the Indiana DOE
are not as accurate as some may think.
Last year, a memo went out from the DOE to Supers, to start making sure that
parents reported enrollment when they said they were going to homeschool.
What this turned in to, was a few shrewd Supers, figuring out that they
could turn their dropout numbers (record highs in Indiana) into “Transfer”
numbers (you transfer to a private school, when you pull your kid out of
public school to homeschool) and kill two birds with one stone.
The enrollment form is easy to fill out, and doesn’t require a ‘signature.”
I could essentially sign up my horses as homeschool kids.
So instead of creating a dropout by doing what they need to do… drop out
or expel a disruptive student… they just tell the parent they have to
homeschool, or they’ll go to jail for breaking compulsory attendance laws.
They fill out the online form FOR THEM (illegal, since the form says that
only parents or guardians can fill it out) and that’s that.
BONUS: It’s possible that transfer students allow the schools to collect
ghost money for that student, even though they aren’t at a desk.
We’ll see how it shakes out… if at all. Needless to say, if the next
reported “homeschooler commits crime” turns out to be one of these
Ex-Schoolers (My term for excommunicated schoolers) that was forged and
forced into homeschooling, we’ll be a little more than all over this!
Thanks for reporting this,
/s/ Benjamin Bennett
Founder, Project Coordinator, Indiana Home Educators’ Network
Co-Moderator, IndianaHomeschoolers Networking & Discussion e-List
………………………………………………………..
BenBennett@ihen.org | ListManagers@ihen.org | WebServices@ihen.org
Pushouts again, as noted in our neighboring state of Indiana, 10 January 2008, Corn and Oil
High school responds to home-school order story, 14 January 2008, Reporter-Times, Martinsville, Indiana