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Texas Home School Coalition
Tim Lambert, President

PO Box 6747, Lubbock, TX 79493
(806) 744-4441 ~ fax (806) 744-4446
staff@thsc.org ~ www.thsc.org

 

Polygamists Cause Questions Regarding Home School Laws

As a result of more than 400 children being removed from families of a religious sect in El Dorado, some have raised questions regarding Texas’ laws regarding state oversight of home schoolers.  “A local law enforcement officer was quoted as saying that authorities were not able to ‘get at’ these families earlier because they were home schooling,” said Tim Lambert, President of the Texas Home School Coalition.  “Such comments point to the legal right of CPS officials to remove a child from a public or private school to investigate allegations of abuse and/or neglect without the knowledge or consent of the parents, but in Texas and America families have a constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures, and authorities must have probable cause to get a judge to grant a court order to allow them to enter a home for such an investigation without the family’s consent,” he said.

Mr. Lambert said that private schools, including home schools, in Texas are not regulated or controlled by the state and parents are neither required to receive permission to homeschool nor to register with school officials.  The 1994 Leeper v. Arlington ISD case settled almost a decade of litigation against the state by home school families to end prosecutions and harassment of home school families under the truancy statutes.

“It is unfortunate that some officials try to blame situations of suspected abuse or neglect on the freedom that parents have to teach their children at home and somehow imply that if the state of Texas regulated private schools, these tragedies would not happen,” Mr. Lambert said. 

Mr. Lambert pointed out that numerous studies had demonstrated that there was no link between government regulation of home schooling and better performance of students, which is the primary argument for state regulation of private schools.  “The issue in El Dorado is one of potential abuse and/or neglect and has nothing to do with home schooling,” Mr. Lambert concluded.

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