OT (Rockets): Parents arrested for failing to register home-schooled kids

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JonathanDunbar

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Now I know this has nothing to do with rockets, but some of you have posted that you home school your children.

I didn't realize that you had to register with the government in order to home school... why? I just don't see it as the Gov's business... or should it be?

https://www.cbs6albany.com/news/district-1269895-school-county.html

A Montgomery County couple has been arrested on child endangerment charges for failing to register their children with the school district as they were home-schooled, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office said Monday.

Richard Cressy, 47, and Margie Cressy, 41, both of the town of Glen, never registered their four children or their home-schooling curriculum with the local school district, said the Sheriff's Office.

The Superintendent of the Fonda-Fultonville Central School District confirmed the four children, ranging in age from 8 to 14, had not been registered with the school district for the last seven years.

The Cressys were issued appearance tickets to appear in the Town of Glen Court at a later date. The case has been turned over to the Montgomery County District Attorney and the Child Protective Unit.

Are these kids REALLY in danger and if so from what?! No REALLY, what?!?

Jonathan

P.s. Abraham Lincoln was home-schooled and I am certain there wasn't a school district that he had to be registered with back in his day. Does this mean his legacy is phoney and without merit?
 
I guess I can give my view on this as we home schooled our son. When we pulled our kid out of public school (a few weeks into 1st grade) we had to register with the state. We had to prove we did 180 days of school. 3 years after we started HS Indiana dropped that. I wish there was some kind of regulations so it wouldn't get abused by riff raff. Example My son got an 88 on his ASVAB test for the airforce. His recruter told him about a kid who dropped out but tryed to join saying he was home schooled (he got a 32 on his ASVAB test).
Another interesting thing one of his friends came over asking if he could help him with a math problem (Bobby was in 4th he was in 5th grade) Showed him the book and it was the exact same book with a different cover.
Mr. Bob
Starlight Model Rockets LLC
 
Are these kids REALLY in danger and if so from what?! No REALLY, what?!?

Jonathan

P.s. Abraham Lincoln was home-schooled and I am certain there wasn't a school district that he had to be registered with back in his day. Does this mean his legacy is phoney and without merit?[/QUOTE]

Abraham Lincoln was home schooled in an era when many people had little if any formal education. The times he lived in allowed for it. Now, we live in a technological society which demands a certain degree of education for successful existence.

I think the right to educate one's children at home comes with the responsibility of cooperating with society (i.e. the government) to ensure that the children will be ensured of recieving the required skills so as not to become an undue burden on a society that provides for those who cannot provide for themselves. An uneducated person seems to be burdensome not by fate but rather by will, whether that will is their own or that of the persons responsible for them. Whether a child is educated by the state or at home, a curriculum is required of the responsible parties.

That being said, I am all for personal freedom, including the freedom to not educate your children, or educate them in a manner consistent with your personal beliefs. However, I believe that right comes with the responsibility to care for what one has created, or reap the benefits therein.
If one doesn't educate their children they have the respobsibility to deal with whatever fallout occurs from that decision.
 
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Are these kids REALLY in danger and if so from what?! No REALLY, what?!?

Jonathan

P.s. Abraham Lincoln was home-schooled and I am certain there wasn't a school district that he had to be registered with back in his day. Does this mean his legacy is phoney and without merit?

Abraham Lincoln was home schooled in an era when many people had little if any formal education. The times he lived in allowed for it. Now, we live in a technological society which demands a certain degree of education for successful existence.

I think the right to educate one's children at home comes with the responsibility of cooperating with society (i.e. the government) to ensure that the children will be ensured of recieving the required skills so as not to become an undue burden on a society that provides for those who cannot provide for themselves. An uneducated person seems to be burdensome not by fate but rather by will, whether that will is their own or that of the persons responsible for them. Whether a child is educated by the state or at home, a curriculum is required of the responsible parties.

That being said, I am all for personal freedom, including the freedom to not educate your children, or educate them in a manner consistent with your personal beliefs. However, I believe that right comes with the responsibility to care for what one has created, or reap the benefits therein.
If one doesn't educate their children they have the respobsibility to deal with whatever fallout occurs from that decision.

RocketSmith,

You mentioned something I have given some thought too; "Abraham Lincoln was home schooled in an era when many people had little if any formal education. The times he lived in allowed for it."

We live in a society where personal responcibility is at an all time low for Western people. We no longer have to grow our own food, build and maintain our own houses, educate our own children, grow and slaughter our own live-stock.

Sure we have the internet, iPhones, Video on Demand, Tivo, ect., but more of us would be dead in 2 - 3 weeks should society collapse, i.e. no more grocery stores, no Burger Kings, no Walmarts... if people had to start from the beginning, a fair percentage of people would die of dehydration, hunger, malnutrition, poisons/disease.

I spell all this out because I wonder if we trully are as advanced as we would like to think ourselves?

We as a species 'home-schooled' ourselves for thousans/millions of years. We learned how to walk up-right, then to make tools, then make other items with tools. We learned how to hunt, gather, cultivate, create civilizations and religious/political constructs.

Do we really act 'unatural' when we teach our children the basics or prevent them from learning modern technology as opposed to baiting a hook, dressing a carcass, or tilling the soil?

Just wondering...
 
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My sister home schooled all five of her children. One just entered Yale Medical School this fall, and the second one has already gotten acceptance letters to Yale and Princeton (She hasn't decided which yet).

My best advice would be before jumping in and home schooling your children, do your research. Be aware of the local requirements. In my home state of CT, Home school parents must provide written notification 14 days prior to the start of each homeschooling year, and requires 172 days of attendance each year. Also, the kids take standardized tests every other year, and if they score below the 13th percentile, they are immediately put into public school.
 
We live in a society where personal responcibility is at an all time low for Western people. We no longer have to grow our own food, build and maintain our own houses, educate our own children, grow and slaughter our own live-stock.

...

I spell all this out because I wonder if we trully are as advanced as we would like to think ourselves?

Depends on your definition of "advanced", I guess. I would say that we are more advanced because each person *doesn't* have to do all those things themselves. We don't generally build our own houses, because we're not all skilled at doing so. Instead, someone who knows what they're doing does it for us. Result: we all have better houses than if we had to build them ourselves. Beats living in mud huts, if you ask me.
Same thing generally applies to education, too. Schools are there for a good reason.

The Cressys were issued appearance tickets to appear in the Town of Glen Court at a later date. The case has been turned over to the Montgomery County District Attorney and the Child Protective Unit.

Are these kids REALLY in danger and if so from what?! No REALLY, what?!?
Something to keep in mind is some parents may (try and) take their kids out of school and put them to work on the farm or whatever. Registering and keeping track of home-schooled kids helps to stop this from happening. I don't personally see how filling out a couple of forms to register kids as homeschooled is such a big deal?

Phil
 
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RocketSmith,

You mentioned something I have given some thought too; "Abraham Lincoln was home schooled in an era when many people had little if any formal education. The times he lived in allowed for it."

We live in a society where personal responcibility is at an all time low for Western people. We no longer have to grow our own food, build and maintain our own houses, educate our own children, grow and slaughter our own live-stock.

Sure we have the internet, iPhones, Video on Demand, Tivo, ect., but more of us would be dead in 2 - 3 weeks should society collapse, i.e. no more grocery stores, no Burger Kings, no Walmarts... if people had to start from the beginning, a fair percentage of people would die of dehydration, hunger, malnutrition, poisons/disease.

I spell all this out because I wonder if we trully are as advanced as we would like to think ourselves?

We as a species 'home-schooled' ourselves for thousans/millions of years. We learned how to walk up-right, then to make tools, then make other items with tools. We learned how to hunt, gather, cultivate, create civilizations and religious/political constructs.

Do we really act 'unatural' when we teach our children the basics or prevent them from learning modern technology as opposed to baiting a hook, dressing a carcass, or tilling the soil?

Just wondering...

The thrust of may stament was to suggest that with any right we have is an implied responsibility for the outcome of exercising that right. I agree that we should take every opportunity to learn the fundamental aspects of life and survival. Knowing how to grow our own food and provide shelter for ourselves is paramount. Homeschooling, when correctly applied, can offer many opportunities that aren't available in an institutional setting. But it can also leave a person ill prepared for the world as it exists, based on opportunities that could be missed from a lack of resources that are provided in a public/ private school setting. I have seen this first hand in some associates of mine who were taught at home. There is also something to be said for the social education one gets in school. Whether these positive experiences are offset by the "negative" aspects of socialized schooling is certainly a point for debate. I do think that, as a society, we have a right to expect that a person schooled at home will be taught the basic skills required to exist in our modern society. I think that is what started this whole discussion; not that the children were homeschooled but that no curriculum had been established and therefor we cannot be even remotely assured that the children were being educated to any standard at all.
 
I'm homeschooling my 5th grader this year and even the parents on the homeschooling forums are split on this issue. I think it simply boils down to a matter of philosophy: in most populations we see a spectrum of people who think the goverment should have no involvement in the private lives of citizens to those who think that part of the government's responsibility is to look out for the welfare of its citizens. The general consensus on the homeschooling forums seems to be that these parents will just get their hands slapped and nothing else. Few states are willing to spend much in the way of resources to go after homeschoolers unless there is considerable negligence.

My best advice would be before jumping in and home schooling your children, do your research. Be aware of the local requirements. In my home state of CT, Home school parents must provide written notification 14 days prior to the start of each homeschooling year, and requires 172 days of attendance each year. Also, the kids take standardized tests every other year, and if they score below the 13th percentile, they are immediately put into public school.

States vary *greatly* on their requirements, all the way from states that require registration, dictate course requirements, check on logs of school hours, provide curriculum materials, require annual meetings between parents and local school districts...all the way down to states like mine (IL) which don't require registration, don't have any requirements beyond age requirements and providing a "comparable" education to the public schools, and never check up on families unless there are reports of gross negligance (as in no schooling taking place whatsoever). The only thing it was suggested that I do was to write a letter to my child's principal to inform the school that I was pulling her out. It took far more effort on my part to get her back into the school for one class (band) this year!
 
Every state is different.

Missouri parents have neither to register with anyone nor get their curriculum "approved". They did have to be able to prove that the State minimum education requirements are met, 20 years ago that was at least 1000 hours of instruction per year in core subjects reading, writing, math, science, social studies.

Wisconsin home school parents needed to have teaching certificates and a state-approved curriculum.

Back in the day, ALL home schooling was thought to be child abuse. Parents were charged with promoting truancy. It's much more accepted today, but still not popular with school districts. Funny because they get their tax money from residents either way.
 
you are getting into politics again.

Not really as you can be 'right' or 'left' and still home-school your child. This time I am being social more than anything else :)

Jonathan
 
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Thanks for all the informative replies!

Now the question: Does the failure to register the children warrent the arrest and jailing of the parents?!?

There are REAL criminals commiting REAL crimes out there in the world. Was this 'show of strength' done to send a message to all home-schoolers that you better get with the program so to speak?

Jonathan
 
Thanks for all the informative replies!

Now the question: Does the failure to register the children warrent the arrest and jailing of the parents?!?

There are REAL criminals commiting REAL crimes out there in the world. Was this 'show of strength' done to send a message to all home-schoolers that you better get with the program so to speak?

Jonathan

There's been no indication in any articles that I have read that these parents were sent to jail or that they will be sent to jail. They were arrested and issued tickets.

Also, what you didn't include when you copied over the article here was the rest of the article which suggests they have since complied with the law.

The Cressys were issued appearance tickets to appear in the Town of Glen Court at a later date. The case has been turned over to the Montgomery County District Attorney and the Child Protective Unit.

Hoffman said the Cressys have since submitted a home-schooling curriculum, which he has approved.
 
Back in the day, ALL home schooling was thought to be child abuse. Parents were charged with promoting truancy. It's much more accepted today, but still not popular with school districts. Funny because they get their tax money from residents either way.

Yes, they get their tax money from residents. But more students = more money. if people started home schooling their kids in bunches, they'd lose a fortune. And they'd all have to get new jobs. So, they frown down on it, and try to get laws and restrictions passed.
 
I wonder if any of the involved parties flew rockets or talked about a fun movie they saw?
Home schooling is a choice and government regulating it to an extant is good IMO because for obvious reasons some might miss out. Societies need laws to protect the weak and limit negative behaviours. Otherwise you get what Hobbes called life that was "nasty brutish and short". The degree to which governments should intervene is deterrmined by a conscensus of those people who dwell in a place . As a Canadian I may feel differantly about these things then people in other places and that is perfectly okay.
It's amazing to me how some folks consistently and constantly belittle those who do not think as they do. Life taught me a long time things that I percieve as common sence and fair are neither to perfectly reasonable individuals and sometimes they are right:)
I think one Star trek concept that needs to be looked at anew by many is IDIC.
Cheers
fred
 
There's been no indication in any articles that I have read that these parents were sent to jail or that they will be sent to jail. They were arrested and issued tickets.

Also, what you didn't include when you copied over the article here was the rest of the article which suggests they have since complied with the law.

The Cressys were issued appearance tickets to appear in the Town of Glen Court at a later date. The case has been turned over to the Montgomery County District Attorney and the Child Protective Unit.

Hoffman said the Cressys have since submitted a home-schooling curriculum, which he has approved.


Ok, arrested and issued tickets. That's a whole different ball of wax.

This means they were given a summons. Kinda like a traffic ticket. Like you forgot to renew your car registration. They were probably never put into handcuffs, or fingerprinted, or anything like that. I've gotten these before. A number of times. Its for minor infractions. Technically, a traffic ticket is an arrest.

Since they have since registered, and it was accepted, it will likely be dropped at the first court appearance.
 
Just my opinion:

I think homeschooling is missing a major point that is important in society, meeting and working with others in larger groups on a common and daily basis. Sure they are sports events and activities the kids go to, but these are structured and scheduled in a way that provides a comfortable and expected rhythm, while the slight chaos of day to day attendance at school exposes the kids to the unplanned in a way, and they can develop a sense of independence in the world and not be jostled by a change of plan. Two or three hours of a planned activity is usually pretty tightly scheduled and controlled, and usually team oriented. A full day of school shows kids how to be quiet and studious in large groups, something that can translate into the office later in life. I think these experiences promote leadership as well, since home school by definition removes kids for real leadership opportunities.

Just my opinion.

Besides, do you think James Tiberius Kirk will be homeschooled?
 
If you don't know any home-schooled folks, that's an easy opinion to have. Are leaders created or are they born? Are they created by a classroom experience or are they molded by their parents?

There are a lot of life experiences that happen outside the hallowed halls of the school building. Kids don't learn everything in that building.

Just like with anything there are good and bad aspects to home schooling as well as "normal" schooling, which has only been "normal" for about 100 years.

N
 
If you don't know any home-schooled folks, that's an easy opinion to have. Are leaders created or are they born? Are they created by a classroom experience or are they molded by their parents?

There are a lot of life experiences that happen outside the hallowed halls of the school building. Kids don't learn everything in that building.

Just like with anything there are good and bad aspects to home schooling as well as "normal" schooling, which has only been "normal" for about 100 years.

N

Is there a "Kobayashi Maru" in homeschooling?

By the way, I don't think parents should just send their kids off to school, I think school should be one part of a full education.
 
Starship command training doesn't start until grade 6 where I'm from.

N
 
We homeschool our kids here in ILL, and fortunately, it's one of the least restrictive states insofar as the legal requirements.

There's a lot of misinformation about homeschooling with the issue of 'socialization' being one of them. In the real world we are rarely grouped together just with peers of a similar age, except for our public school years. The idea of homeschool kids staying home all day by themselves and not interacting with others is not the typical situation.

For anyone interested in the subject, here's a good link to some extensive research on the subject https://www.hslda.org/research/default.asp. Homeschooling works for the majority of folks who try it and their kids are acheiving at a higher rate than the public schools.

What's interesting about people who want to have more government involvement in homeschool is that they fail to have any interest in the pathetic job that the public school system is doing. The US average graduation rate is about 68%. That means that over 30% of the kids never make it through the system, and that statistic doesn't include the other 20% or so who are getting near-failing grades while still in school. Just something to think about.
 
Just my opinion:

I think homeschooling is missing a major point that is important in society, meeting and working with others in larger groups on a common and daily basis. Sure they are sports events and activities the kids go to, but these are structured and scheduled in a way that provides a comfortable and expected rhythm, while the slight chaos of day to day attendance at school exposes the kids to the unplanned in a way, and they can develop a sense of independence in the world and not be jostled by a change of plan. Two or three hours of a planned activity is usually pretty tightly scheduled and controlled, and usually team oriented.

I agree with Ranger's comments--if you don't know any homeschool families it's easy to form opinions based on suppositions and stereotypes. We know many and the kids are all over the social skills map, just as they were when I taught public school.

You're right that I do take my child/student to a number of activities that are more tightly controlled and scheduled, with fewer numbers of distractions. Thank goodness (!), as it had reached the point where there were so many disruptions in my daughter's class that it became an impediment to learning. Cooperative learning, too many behavioral problems, a large percentage of special ed kids and support staff in and out of the classroom all day, volunteers in and out, ten reading groups (not the 3 we grew up with) doing mostly non-quiet tasks in the same rooms at the same time, the whole class being punished for the actions of some, etc.

While not the same, there's still ample opportunity for disruptions on the home school front--I've experienced that with just one child here. Take this week for instance: I'd carefully planned for our first day back Tuesday and wound up with those plans being jumbled due to a vehicle going in for repair (no heat...brrr) and my not feeling well. Then yesterday a one hour dentist appointment turned into a half day when the power went out shortly after the dentist started drilling. And it's looking very likely that we'll have a snow day today. I'm not too concerned, however, as my kiddo has nearly finished the same amount of math this year in one semester as her older siblings did in this same grade in a full year in the public school. Ditto with most of her other subjects.

A full day of school shows kids how to be quiet and studious in large groups, something that can translate into the office later in life. I think these experiences promote leadership as well, since home school by definition removes kids for real leadership opportunities.

Shrox, have you spent any time in a public school recently? The typical school around here isn't about developing leaders and scholars anymore. The claim to be "individualizing" but in reality it's all about equality and bringing up the rear so that they can make passing grades on standardized testing. And the amount of commotion and noise in large groups was often challenging to concentrate in even for me as an adult without attention problems. At my childrens' school student council members weren't selected by teachers based on leadership abilities, it was by lottery. But hey, they made up for it with strong students like my daughter by doing things like giving them no math assignments one week except to tutor struggling students.
 
I agree with Ranger's comments--if you don't know any homeschool families it's easy to form opinions based on suppositions and stereotypes. We know many and the kids are all over the social skills map, just as they were when I taught public school.

You're right that I do take my child/student to a number of activities that are more tightly controlled and scheduled, with fewer numbers of distractions. Thank goodness (!), as it had reached the point where there were so many disruptions in my daughter's class that it became an impediment to learning. Cooperative learning, too many behavioral problems, a large percentage of special ed kids and support staff in and out of the classroom all day, volunteers in and out, ten reading groups (not the 3 we grew up with) doing mostly non-quiet tasks in the same rooms at the same time, the whole class being punished for the actions of some, etc.

While not the same, there's still ample opportunity for disruptions on the home school front--I've experienced that with just one child here. Take this week for instance: I'd carefully planned for our first day back Tuesday and wound up with those plans being jumbled due to a vehicle going in for repair (no heat...brrr) and my not feeling well. Then yesterday a one hour dentist appointment turned into a half day when the power went out shortly after the dentist started drilling. And it's looking very likely that we'll have a snow day today. I'm not too concerned, however, as my kiddo has nearly finished the same amount of math this year in one semester as her older siblings did in this same grade in a full year in the public school. Ditto with most of her other subjects.



Shrox, have you spent any time in a public school recently? The typical school around here isn't about developing leaders and scholars anymore. The claim to be "individualizing" but in reality it's all about equality and bringing up the rear so that they can make passing grades on standardized testing. And the amount of commotion and noise in large groups was often challenging to concentrate in even for me as an adult without attention problems. At my childrens' school student council members weren't selected by teachers based on leadership abilities, it was by lottery. But hey, they made up for it with strong students like my daughter by doing things like giving them no math assignments one week except to tutor struggling students.

I did say school should be a part of a full education. Is Yale or Harvard homeschool?
 
Can multiple homeschools be taught in a common room? That would allow for more exposure to a larger group.
 
Can multiple homeschools be taught in a common room? That would allow for more exposure to a larger group.

It depends on how it's done -- here in Nebraska, several years back, there were people who were "homeschooling" their children together. What they were really doing was using the term "homeschooling" to cover an unlicensed private school. Needless to say, they got shut down.

I know someone in Alabama who homeschools one of their children, and they get their daughter a tutor for one specific subject (I forget which one). When she works on that subject, she's in with a group of other homeschool students, who are all working with that instructor on that single subject.

-Kevin
 
I did say school should be a part of a full education. Is Yale or Harvard homeschool?

Nobody is even hinting at college level here. We're talking through high school.

My sister has one in medical school and one about to go into college next fall. The third is 15. She asked to go to regular school this year, because "all her friends were and she wanted to be with them all day."

I spoke with Chelsea a month after she started, and she told me "I want to go back to being home schooled. I'm bored. I know all of this stuff already." I asked my sister about it, and she was seriously considering pulling her back out. Finally, she did last month. Chelsea is around 2 years farther along than everyone else her age in that school. So are the rest of my sister's kids.
 
Can multiple homeschools be taught in a common room? That would allow for more exposure to a larger group.
We belong to a loose group of ablot 15,000 familys (in a 3 county area) that get together fo to field trips, do organized sports, and if you have problems with a course to help you out. I can go 1 mile down the road and talk to an ex NASA engineer (Worked on scramjet tec at Lewis RS) and he will help anyone with high end math and science.
Plus we dont have metal detecters and worry about guns and gang crap.
Mr. Bob
 
Nobody is even hinting at college level here. We're talking through high school.

My sister has one in medical school and one about to go into college next fall. The third is 15. She asked to go to regular school this year, because "all her friends were and she wanted to be with them all day."

I spoke with Chelsea a month after she started, and she told me "I want to go back to being home schooled. I'm bored. I know all of this stuff already." I asked my sister about it, and she was seriously considering pulling her back out. Finally, she did last month. Chelsea is around 2 years farther along than everyone else her age in that school. So are the rest of my sister's kids.

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We're members of two local homeschools organizations. One of them offers a teaching coop where various parents volunteer to teach subjects that they're experts in. That allows parents to choose from a great selection of classes if they so desire. I taught rocketry for a few years, we had a pilot teaching aviation and meteorology, and so on.

The amount of professional curriculum available along with video and computer instruction is quite staggering. We have a large homeschool conference each year that has attendance over 10,000 people and hundreds of vendors.

There are so many opportunities to socialized in meaningful ways other than just having kids sitting in a conventional classroom, and frankly, not really interacting that much with each other anyway.

There's 4H programs, park district programs, sports programs, homeschool group programs, church programs, private instructional programs (piano lessons), library programs, etc. It's probably different for people in a remote rural area. But in an urban setting there are tons of opportunities for socialization.
 
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