Lets start from where it all begins.
California just like every other state has laws on child vaccinations. Most states require that by the time a child reaches school they need to be vaccinated against certain diseases. Most states have an exemption for those that can not or will not vaccinate their children in order to go to school. So why is California in the spotlight lately about home school? Well SB-277 Public health: vaccinations. started it all. If you wish to read the whole bill you can do so here http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB277
Basically it removed the parental right to choose to have their child go to school unvaccinated. There is still a medical exemption. And you had a chance to still be under a personal exemption but you had to file a form by the deadline and that would only stay active until the next checkpoint which was ok for older children but not for elementary children as it would only cover them until grade 7.
So what happened when this new law went into effect. SB 277 Mandatory Vaccine Law Does Not Apply To:
Students in home-based private schools.
Students enrolled in an independent study program who do not receive classroom-based instruction.
Access to special education and related services specified in an IEP (Individualized Education Program) can not be denied. Below is a screenshot of a research paper that can be found here https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2652640?redirect=true
It is fair to say with all the people moving out of the public school and into a home school or other form of school that the states are getting scared. You see for each child that is in a school that school gets funding from the state. Your tax dollars do not go down if you choose to not have your child in a public school. But the school does not get the money if you do. If they got rid of 10000 personal exemptions and the number of medical exemptions went up by only 2000 where did the other 8000 children go towards. It is safe to assume some of them graduated. And I will be conservative when I say maybe half got vaccinated while the other half chose to home school. I was not able to find accurate stats on this as the studies are still being done. So I am going to go with half.
Now all is well in the homeschool world for a few years until this happens. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-coleman-brightbill-turpin-homeschool-abuse-20180117-story.html
The headline reads as follows"The Turpin child abuse story fits a widespread and disturbing homeschooling pattern" Please go read the article it is a very sad story about some children that were abused by their parents and now they are blaming home school as a reason they did not know about the abuse.
In my last post I stated that I home school my children and I know many other families that home school. And all of them do it for different reasons. I can honestly say that there is never any signs of abuse only great love and respect for our children shown by the families that I know. I am sure if you look hard enough there are families using this as a way to go under the radar and abuse their children. But the majority do not. Enough of that let get back to the reason for this post.
In a not so shocking turn of events California has decided that they need to take drastic and unconstitutional actions against homeschooling families. According to this article http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/california-overreacts-and-presumes-every-homeschooling-parent-is-a-child-abuser/article/2647734 Titled "California overreacts and presumes every homeschooling parent is a child abuser" This comment is a straight copy and paste from the article It goes into more detail but I left it the way it is because this is VERY important to keep in mind. It states the following
So what does this mean exactly? In plain terms if you choose to home school your child you will have CPS involved in your life. They will be going into your home solely because you home school. They will not need a warrant or a cause or a complaint or concern that you are abusing or neglecting your children. This is not only intrusive but it is unconstitutional. And IF they are allowed to get away with doing this in California other states WILL follow.
As we already learned that the use of the term Neglect is the most common term and it includes Educational Neglect I fear that more children will be ripped from their families if this is allowed to happen.
As I fully support the #familyprotection movement 25% of ALL the SBD generated for this post will be transferred to #familyprotection.
As always Thank you for taking the time to read this post. It means the world to me to finally have a place where I can speak openly and without fear or repercussion.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!