Two weeks ago, I discussed the report by the North Carolina Department of Social Services regarding findings and recommendations by the Child Fatality Task Force with regards to the death of four year old Sean Paddock. Among the many recommendations, most of which dealt with the failures of the Department of Social Services, was one for the Department of Non-Public Instruction. Because Sean’s family homeschooled, the Task Force hypothesizes that perhaps the abuse could have been caught earlier had there been greater oversight. Point one under Recommendation number five:
- The Department of Non-Public Instruction should conduct a study regarding a Needs Assessment and pursue funding to support increased monitoring and oversight to home schools. State Child Fatality Review Findings and Recommendations
What I didn’t understand two weeks ago, and don’t understand now, is how funding is going to accomplish what the Fatality Review Board is hoping for. Looking over the current law in North Carolina, the only monitoring I found was this:
12. A DNPE representative periodically inspects the records of home schools to verify each school’s continuing compliance to state law.
And a mention that this can occur at the home:
Since 1985, the North Carolina General Statutes governing home schools has required that certain home school records “. . . shall be made available . . . at the principal office of such school, at all reasonable times, for annual inspection by a duly authorized representative of the State of North Carolina.” The purpose of the visit is to determine that the home school record keeping statutory requirements are being met on a continuing basis. NC Division of Non-Public Education
As noted by the News & Observer, there were several inspections of the Paddock household prior to Sean’s adoption. According to the surviving children, severe abuse was occurring throughout this time. But they were trained not to speak of it and it passed the notice of people who are trained to spot abuse and are there specifically to determine whether or not the home would be suitable for adoption. I doubt they would have run out screaming to the annual evaluator who is there to check paperwork that they are being abused.
It seems that what the Task Force desires (stricter monitoring) is possible only through legislation, not a recommendation of the Task Force. And the Department of Non-Public Instruction appears to concur.
Tougher regulations will be a legislative choice and not a decision by the non-public education division, said Jill Lucas, public information officer for the N.C. Department of Administration.
“If legislators see fit to change the laws,” she said, “we will make the law changes.” Rocky Mount Telegram
That shouldn’t come as any surprise. The NC Department of Non-Public Education should know better than any other branch exactly what is allowed under the law and what their responsibilities are under it. Perhaps the Department of Social Services is not well-versed in the law enough to realize that they needed to address their concerns to the legislature.
Others, however, are doing so. This editorial is actually a step above most of the ones I have read which call for greater monitoring of homeschoolers in response to an abuse case. It is careful to note that homeschooling is effective, provides children with a “leg up” and “protections from unwanted outside influences” and even notes that these are child abuse issues, not homeschooling issues. That I very much appreciated. Still, they maintain (despite the obvious failings of DSS in this and other cases):
However, recent incidents in which children have been neglected and abused while enrolled as home-schoolers demands state lawmakers consider more stringent oversight of home-school families. Rocky Mount Telegram
It is a difficult problem and one that I am sure most of us have thought through more than once. It sickens me to think what these children must go through. In fact, that is at the heart of what I wrote for Heart of the Matter for this month (available July 8). But it occurs even in the public schools, under the watchful eye of mandatory reporters. It happens in foster homes (case in point: the Paddocks) where a multitude of trained professionals have regular access to children. And death is most likely to occur with children younger than four. Below the compulsory education age. And while it may be easy for most Americans to wonder if perhaps there should be more oversight of homeschools “just in case” how many would begin to see why we generally object to this intrusion so vociferously if all homes containing children under the age of six were treated with the same suspicion? And if editorials calling on legislators to increase the state’s monitoring of parents became as prevalent as those suggesting increased monitoring of homeschools for the same reasons?
homeschool homeschooling Paddock
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That’s it in a nushell. For purposes of ‘oversight,’ homeschooling families are no different than families with children at home who are under the age of compulsory school attendance.
The sad paradox is that this group of children is the group most likely to suffer harm, while at the same time being the group that most needs secure family life. What is unsettling is how easily we’re slipping into the attitude that even these children ought to be under the watchful eye of an outsider.
It is scary to think. There I of course that program which has raised a bit of controversy that essentially gives parenting classes to new mothers in the hospital. I think programs like that are founded on something great, and are a way to hopefully help some families before something happens. But then there is the issue of who is in control, being forced into these kinds of programs and being held with suspicion if you decline.
Child abuse is something that has always been around, but something we are only relatively recently truly aware of. But with almost all child abuse statistics we have, there is a sort of shadowy figure reported next to it…the number of cases that go unreported.
I always question how we know that. How do we “know” that the rate of abuse is three times higher than the reported cases? And if that is the case, why do use the same multiplier of three when child abuse statistic climb? Isn’t it more reasonable to think that perhaps reporting is increasing?
We used to have neighbors that I worried about a little. Not anything that would be reportable, but just a general feeling. Rather than calling CPS, however, we got involved with the family. Invited them over, told them we’d love to have their kids over any time and did what little we could to offer them support.
If everyone reached out to struggling families and drew them into their communities, I think perhaps we would see both better reporting and, more importantly, less abuse.
When I read the laws though it specifically stated for children 7-16 years of age. Sean Paddock was 4. So by virtue of the law he wouldn’t have been protected by more stringent laws as the Paddocks wouldn’t have had to send in the letter of intent. I truly believe that more stringent laws for homeschoolers is just to take the focus of the failure of DSS and refocus it upon the “non compliant people” .
I think they are hoping the abuse might have been caught by virtue of the older children in the home. Otherwise it makes absolutely no sense since he is not of compulsory education age.
But it makes sense in the larger human scheme of things. People have to feel it’s not hopeless, that there is SOMETHING the pubic (government unfortunately) can do.
I think it’s like Dave Ramsey’s advice about paying off your smallest debt first, no matter if that interest rate is more favorable than some other debt. The point isn’t only the logic and numbers of it; it’s the psychology of it, what makes us feel like we’re making progress in the right direction, instead of just throwing up our hands.
“Doing something” gets us into more trouble.
But I do think there is something we can all do. Check in on our neighbors, know them by name, invite them over and make a special effort to be kind particularly if we are suspicious that something might be going on.
This isn’t true of the Paddock’s, but imagine cases like the Jacks case. How do you have four children dead in their rooms in an apartment for what is beginning to look like months without anyone noticing? Residents thought it was a mouse? No one noticed they hadn’t seen the children in ages?
No government program can compensate for that kind of failure. And that is where I get particularly frustrated. Liberty is only possible with responsibility. Our system of government is not possible with widespread complacency.
After all, the federal government would have never gotten involved with education if the system were working. But it isn’t failing due to lack of state oversight. It is struggling due to problems in the home. The government can do some things, but it cannot replace the key people in a child’s life that make education attainable.
Not to disagree, not at all. I just think we do better by first really understanding, the best we can, where these regualtory impulses come from. Then it’s more likely we can figure out how to satisfy or at least blunt them some other way, once we “get it.”
Regulatory impulses come from a desire to improve the state of affairs. But real change is not really an external thing. We can increase oversight all we want, but if it does nothing to address the underlying problems, it does little with the potential of taking away something more.
Dana, reading your “America the Beautiful” post this lyric jumped out at me:
Confirm thy SOUL in self-control,
Thy LIBERTY in law.
Homeschoolers can get so worked up over “liberty in law” that we lose self-control, stop confirming our soul.
I mean by that the soul of homeschooling, which is no more external or legalistic than our individual souls. But we see loss of soul absent self-control too, in every homeschool blogger upset enough about some external political threat or enemy, to stop reasoning and start ranting, smearing, listening only to her own echo chamber. Even on an issue such as this — maybe especially on a issue such as this.
I agree, but there is some difficulty in that as well.
Most of the time when we rant, our intended audience is other homeschoolers. Sometimes we forget or sometimes we don’t care that the audience is potentially larger than what is intended. It is like a very public private conversation and I think mostly we would do well if everyone recognized that in blogs, especially in blogs they are not familiar with.
People strike a very different tone when their goal is to actually try to persuade someone with a different opinion. Even most discussions on blogs don’t qualify as that sort of discourse. Mostly when bloggers respond to disagreement, they are actually writing for those who agree with them, hence the sarcasm, the bitterness, the lack of an attempt to find any sort of common ground. That and we aren’t really dealing with people, just snippets of information. It takes effort to remember there is a person on the other side of the Internet.
It is one thing for me to say to you over a cup of coffee that I’m tired of uniformed journalists and hypocritical social service workers casting aspersions on all homeschoolers because of some abuse case. By the nature of relationship between two people having coffee together, you would know that my heart went out to the abused child, that these things sicken me, and likely that I left working with the foster care system in part because it just affected me too much to read the files on these kids.
But when the article is published and 102 of the 110 comments are from homeschoolers ranting rather than expressing sympathy, it does not come across the same way because that relationship is not there with the total stranger. Instead, it comes across as looking a little insensitive and the assertion of “rights” appears out of place.
Balancing my right not to have a state official enter my home to check on my children against the horrific situation described in the article seems like a major disconnect. And it is no wonder so many people respond with “children have rights, too.” But while I think the issue of rights is important, and perhaps even central, it isn’t the first thing that should be dragged out in the comment box of an article like this. “Sorry the kid died, but I have rights!” is what it sounds like even though it is most probably not the actual attitude of the person writing the comment.
I think I just went off on my own tangent, but these issues frustrate me.
Maybe, but you said it SO well!
:)