Smoothing A Way Out Of School, 18 February 2008, Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut
Home-schooling advocates will be watching with interest when legislators hold a public hearing Tuesday on a bill that would change the way parents withdraw their children from public school.
The proposed law would require parents to send a certified letter informing their local school superintendent of their decision, and would mandate that the school board immediately “deem the child withdrawn from school.”
State statutes do not specify how children under 16 are withdrawn from a public school.
Home-School Support, 20 February 2008, Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut
For the past two years, Formichella said she has hidden in her house, shouting through the door when people knock because she fears the person on the other side might be a state social worker coming to take her children away.
…
Within weeks of pulling her children from the public school system in 2006, Formichella received a letter from the local school superintendent requiring her to sign a form and submit more evidence that her children were being properly schooled. If she didn’t, Formichella said, she would risk a neglect investigation by the state Department of Children and Families. Formichella was frightened at first, then incensed.
“That’s a heinous, heinous thing to threaten a parent,” Formichella said outside the hearing room Tuesday. “And [the school superintendent] knew me!”
Commentary on the legislation from the Connecticut blog, Consent of the Governed.
- CT Parental Rights: School withdrawal bill hearing makes the news (includes link to public hearing video)
- More on the school withdrawal bill (commentary on the P.R. surrounding the bill)
- Withdrawal bill news links (links to news reports)
posted by Valerie