Homeschoolers tagged as truant in major U.S. city

Lawsuit: 'Needless, intrusive investigations of innocent parents'

Education officials in New York City are submitting what amounts to “false reports” to those who enforce laws protecting the well-being of children of homeschooling families because they simply will not process the paperwork the families file in a timely fashion.

So alleges a lawsuit filed on behalf of homeschool families by the Home School Legal Defense Association.

The problem is that although parents are filling out all the required paperwork to homeschool and submitting it on a timely basis, the city’s education department lets it sit.

That means students who are in legitimately homeschooling are counted truant by the city, which then dispatches Child Protective Services agents to investigate.

“Rather than follow the clear direction of New York’s regulation governing homeschooling, these defendants regularly make demands not included in the regulation and fail to follow the deadlines imposed on them by the regulation,” the complaint says.

“This routine, repeated bureaucratic indifference to the rights of parents to choose homeschooling has led to significant delays and loss of services, and has caused false reports of educational neglect to be made to the New York City Administration of Children’s Services … which have then caused needless, intrusive investigations of innocent parents.”

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