I know I’m a little late, okay, a lot late in posting our Fourth Grade Lesson Plans. But, I did turn them into my school district back in September, or was it October? More or less, when they were due.
If you’ve been following the news, you’ve heard that a local couple was charged with child endangerment and arrested for not filing their homeschool paperwork. To me, it seems a tad harsh to arrest a couple for neglecting to turn in paperwork, but I imagine that these rules were put in place to ensure the best interests of the child. (I’m not naive, and can well imagine less laudable intentions, but I’d rather not.)
Given that these are the rules in New York, I can’t think of any good reason for not filing the paperwork for seven years. Well, sure, I can imagine wanting nothing to do with Big Brother government, and hoping to avoid it all by flying under the radar, but now that the age of privacy is officially over (according to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg,) it’s just naive to think that no one is going to notice. Even rural New York isn’t that isolated.
This couple made a mistake, but was an arrest necessary? I haven’t seen mention of any previous notice. Shouldn’t the school district have sent out warning letters first? Why resort to an arrest? And why does there seem to be a flurry of news reports around the nation testing the right to homeschool? Like Tammy Takahashi, I hope it’s “because there are more homeschoolers and more awareness.”
For the record, I just posted my Home Instruction Plan for this year, as well as the first Quarterly Report, but I sent in both to the district when they were due. Now I just have to write up and mail in the second Quarterly Report as it’s DUE YESTERDAY.
Hmm…, play in the snow with my kids or write up a homeschool report, what to do, what to do? It’s New York, I better turn in the paperwork.
To see all of the homeschool reports that I’ve filed, Grades 2-4, visit Home School NY.
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