A Colorado homeschooling mother has won a social-services case sparked by a neighbor’s complaint about the family that escalated when a social worker did a “drive-by” and concluded they were planning to flee.

A neighbor of the single mother, whose identity has been withheld to protect her family’s privacy, tipped off social services that the mother had been homeschooling several children, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association.

When an investigator arrived at her door in the fall of 2011, the mother immediately contacted the HSLDA, the nation’s premiere legal defense fund dedicated to parents’ right to home educate.

The mother was instructed by HSLDA attorney Mike Donnelly to ask the social worker to leave, and the social worker complied. But this was only the beginning of the mother’s ordeal.

The social worker did not close the case and continued to investigate the mother’s right to homeschool on the grounds that some of her children have learning disabilities that public schools would be better suited to handle.

Donnelly argued against social services’ assertion that a traditional school setting is better equipped to meet the needs of special-needs children.

“Many families homeschool their children who have learning disabilities because they find that the children’s needs are better met in a one-on-one homeschool setting,” Donnelly said. “Research shows that this is true. It is intolerable that someone would question a family’s right to homeschool simply because their children have a learning disability.”