Answering Questions About California's Now Infamous Court Case

by Valorie Delp | More from this Blogger

08 Mar 2008 07:10 AM

Unless you've been homeschooling under a rock, you know that the Superior Court of California issued a ruling regarding one homeschool family. The wording of the ruling essentially declares homeschooling illegal. Now, it seems, that the whole homeschooling world is up in arms, ready to storm Capital Hill to reverse this great injustice. Just like in a game of telephone, though, as the story is retold again and again, the facts are getting more and more distorted. This is my attempt to answer some questions as I understand them.

Why is the court ruling on homeschooling when this is an abuse case?

By now, we're all aware that the Long's (the defendants in this case)have been accused of abuse by their children. That's how this whole mess started. However, this particular ruling and this particular court case was NOT about abuse, but rather homeschooling. The initial case that led the Long's to court was regarding abuse allegations. That has already (to my understanding) been ruled on and/or dealt with. However, one of the lawyers for the children felt that homeschooling was not serving their client's (the child's) best interest and petitioned the court to force the family to stop. So this particular case, that yielded this particular ruling was about homeschooling and that is why it doesn't address the alleged abuse, but instead addresses homeschoolng.

Are homeschoolers in California in immediate danger?

I do think the ruling should be taken seriously and I think that if it's left unchecked, it could potentially start a slippery slope downwards towards homeschooling becoming illegal. But let's all take a deep breath and relax and look at the facts. To my knowledge, there is no boogey man that works for the Child Protective Services, seeking to take children away from homeschooling families in one sudden, fell swoop. Any action that might proceed from this ruling will take a long time to prosecute. . .it's not instantaneous. In other words, should families begin to be prosecuted (and I kind of doubt that would happen if they are incompliance with state law) it will be a long process during which time I'm sure there will be many, many protests. I'm not saying that we shouldn't sit up and pay attention, but we need to not panic. Websites for major California homeschooling organizations are encouraging families NOT to write to legislators, storm capital hill or anything else.

Let's storm the gates of the Supreme Court!!!

No. . .let's not. We really don't want for the Supreme Court to hear this case. I could get into more complicated legalese but the long and short of it is. . .if they don't hear your case, the ruling stands. If they hear your case and set a precedent that is not in your favor--not only does the ruling stand but it will affect everyone else. Likewise, we really don't want to go the legislative route on the basis of this case either as it's not likely to turn out in homeschoolers' favor. What we want rather, is for the California Supreme Court to "depublish" the ruling. This is essentially a way of saying that this ruling may well apply to this particular set of facts and this particular family but should not become a law that affects all families.

Valorie Delp shares recipes and kitchen tips in the food blog, solves breastfeeding problems, shares parenting tips, and current research in the baby blog, and insight, resources and ideas as a regular guest blogger in the homeschooling blog. To read more articles by Valorie Delp, click here.

Learn more about Valorie Delp

Hello everybody! My name is Valorie and I am one busy lady! When I'm not writing or editing for families, I am busy trying to get my brood of 5 in line.

View Full Profile | More from this Blogger

deedee1231 (4030) 08 Mar 2008 03:06 PM

I have read several articles about this case over the past week or so and somehow it wasn't clear to me that there were two seperate cases--one dealing with the abuse allegations and another that dealt specifically with the family's homeschooling. I still think it is a case of the court system in CA trying to rewrite the letter of the law rather than enforce it, however, I am not in favor of storming the gates of the Supreme Court.

Valorie Delp (49340) 08 Mar 2008 08:26 PM

Deedee1231--I agree that the judge has stepped out of bounds and frankly, I think the lawyer that petitioned the judges to do so was also out of bounds. However, I have a theory on that one. ;-)

It hasn't been entirely clear in the media that the cases were separate things. . .and frankly, I think that's somewhat on purpose by some media outlets. I'm not sure if both items were ruled on simultaneously or if one happened and then later the other happened. I believe it's the latter. . .that the petition to force the children into public school was brought as a result of the decision in the first matter ruled on.

Valorie Delp (49340) 08 Mar 2008 08:50 PM

What CNN is reporting is different than what I have originally read. In their article they say essentially that one of the children reported the parents for abuse and that DCFS then turned to the courts to ask the courts to force the children to go back to school, claiming that abuse would be spotted more easily if they were in school. So in other words, this is saying they were never taken to court (or charged criminally) for abuse. Hoe that clarifies.

AcceptedToCollege (20) 09 Mar 2008 05:44 PM

I don’t think this ruling is as dire as most fear. Keep in mind the facts of this particular case: the children themselves sued their parents who ran a genuinely abusive household. It is entirely possible that the California court overreacted given the severity of the circumstances and will temper their ruling in future applications.

In addition, we’re only talking about an intermediary court of appeals here. If the California Supreme Court grants certiorari (which, given the borderline unconstitutionality of the ruling in regards to substantive due process and the holding of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, I believe is likely), they will almost certainly revise the bright line rule attempted here. And even if there are no further attempted appeal, future courts that deal with homeschooling will undoubtedly trip over themselves to distinguish their cases from this one.

In other words, it’s a jarring ruling for sure, but I do not think the implication that California has outright banning homeschooling will stick.

AcceptedToCollege (20) 09 Mar 2008 05:46 PM

Whoops, sorry. I copied and pasted from Microsoft Word and it looks like my apostrophes got replaced with nonsense text.

Valorie Delp (49340) 09 Mar 2008 05:55 PM

LOL I was always wondering how that happened! Now I know.

I have not read that the children sued their own parents for child abuse. In fact, I believe I read that the child whose lawyer was pursuing the hsing ruling, was saying he wanted to go back to hsing and they refused to hold a seperate hearing on that bc he was a minor and later admitted that they should've. . .

But I tend to agree with you. I am not forseeing hundreds of thousands of homeschoolers being schlepped into jail this coming week as a result of this ruling. ;-)