The below article talks about truants in Levin being banned from the CBD during school hours.
Our home educated children are not truants. This is the schools way to try to deal with truants.
We need to be proactive and not react to this. I think we all need to prepare our children for being asked questions when in the CBD on their own during school hours. Prepare them to be polite, respectful and know what to say. If they behave well, then they will be believed and treated well, then I don’t think it should be a problem.
Update Saturday morning, 5 May: Someone just emailed a discussion group to say: “The first thing on their list is to check that the children are not homeschooled so it should not be a problem.”
Levin’s centre out of bounds for truants
MATHEW GROCOTT
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/6743351/Levins-centre-out-of-bounds-for-truants
The town’s central business district will be dubbed a truant-free zone from Monday to Friday during school hours.
Businesses in the area will be supplied with resource packs, which include posters and stickers, and guidelines to follow when they see children in town during school hours. The move is the brainchild of the Horowhenua Truancy Sub-group, set up as part of the council’s Levin Community Youth Action Plan.
The group includes representatives from the police, school principals, Neighbourhood Support and the business community.
Project manager Geraldine Grey said keeping young people in class was a priority for the Horowhenua District Council.
“We have an obligation to ensure that our young people are strong, independent and smart,” Ms Grey said.
“Only then will they be able to reach their full potential. It is not OK for students to go shopping during school time.”
Ms Grey said truant-free zones had been implemented in other New Zealand towns.
“[These have] shown some great successes with visibly fewer young people entering the zone without appropriate permission.”
School principals will monitor attendance rates to help assess the success of the plan in Levin, she said.
The zone will be in place by May 7.
– © Fairfax NZ News
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From the Smiths:
https://hef.org.nz/2011/craig-smith-26-january-1951-to-30-september-2011/
Updated 25 March 2012: Life for Those Left Behind (Craig Smith’s Health) page 6 click here
Needing help for your home schooling journey:
https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/
And
Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:
https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/
and
https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/
This link is motivational:
https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/
Update Saturday morning, 5 May: Someone just emailed a list to say: “The first thing on their list is to check that the children are not homeschooled so it should not be a problem.”
Question: Some people have suggested that Home Educators carry ID cards
Answer: We don’t want to have to – be forced to carry ID cards. This is a free country and we don’t want to see what happened when Hitler introduced the yellow bands for one section of the community to wear. We don’t want to have our home educated students singled out like that.
That is not to say that it is a good idea to carry an ID card or a copy of the exemption form. It is great if we volunteer to carry these but a different story if our children are forced to carry them. If we kick up a fuss then our children may always have to carry them during school hours. At the moment families are finding that if their children are respectful and answer questions asked of them nicely then there is no problem.
Most home educators like to go to town or let their children go to town during school hours. It is more pleasant, safer and not so many people there at that time.
So we don’t want our children to be forced out of the CBD area of town or be forced to carry ID cards during 9am-3pm.
We just need to be a little wise about how we react to this.