HSLDA’s homeschool Photo Contest is accepting entries through August 1. Students must submit a photo with one of the following fruits of the spirit as their theme:
Category 1 (students age 7-11): Gentleness
Category 2 (students age 12-15): Faithfulness
Category 3 (students age 16-19): Self-control
Mom, dad now seek help from human rights tribunal
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=68432
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
Members of a homeschooling German family who made a forced move to Austria where the activity remains legal now have fled again – this time to Canada – to escape continuing government actions that now also are the subject of a protest lodged at the European Court of Human Rights.
The case involving Andreas and Katharina Plett is being addressed by Joel Thornton, chief of the International Human Rights Group, who alleges Germany is violating articles 8, 9, 10, 14, and 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights with its persecution of homeschooling families.
The Paderborn family is among several in Germany who have challenged that nation’s Nazi-era ban on parents teaching their children at home. Thornton told WND in the Pletts’ case, one of the government maneuvers gave the authority to determine where the Pletts’ two youngest children live to the Youth Welfare Office.
It happened because of their homeschooling. According to a Brussels Journal report at the time, a plain-clothes policewoman rang the Pletts’ doorbell early one day, and when Katharina Plett opened the door, a team of officers who had concealed themselves forced their way in.
Katharina was able to notify her husband by telephone since he and the children were not at home, and instead of returning they traveled directly to Austria and set up a residence.
However, German authorities continue to try to impose their requirements on the family, since they still own property in Germany, and the Pletts now are challenging not only the authority to decide where the children will live but the other decisions in their case as well.
“About a month ago the family fled to Canada to be together without fear of government officials taking their children,” Thornton told WND about the family.
“Though the court has been unwilling to uphold international law in regards to parents’ rights in educational matters it is our hope that the court will look at the number of families continuing to have problems and decide to take the initiative to enforce the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights that are currently being violated by the German courts,” Thornton said.
The earlier decision came in the now-infamous Konrad case. There, the same court concluded that Germany’s ban on homeschooling – in place since the Nazis reigned – does not violate the convention’s religious rights provision, finding that it was important for the nation to avoid parallel societies created by religious groups.
The new case raises that issue, but several others as well.
“The Plett family has suffered the deprivation of their rights guaranteed under Article 8 of the Convention in that respect for their private and family life has been violated without demonstrated necessity for national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, the prevention of disorder or crime, the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others,” the complaint, filed on Friday, says.
It also alleges violations of Article 9 in that their “religious convictions” have been violated and Article 10 violations involving “freedom of expression, particularly the freedom to impart information and ideas without interference by public authorities.”
Further, the court action alleges Germany is discriminating against them based on their religious convictions and under Protocol 1, Article 2 in that “in the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religions and philosophical convictions.”
“The Plett family is asking this court to overturn the decision of all the German courts and declare that the state took improper custody of their children while exercising their rights. … The Plett family asks this court to clarify that the rights guaranteed under Articles 8, 9, 10 and 14 are not subject to governmental intervention without clear and convincing evidence that homeschooling their children would rise to the level of violating the interferences regulated by the Convention. That is not the case here,” the appeal said.
The action also seeks a cancellation of all fines imposed by Germany and the recovery of all costs.
Thornton told WND the children continue to live with the family only because the state Youth Welfare Office never has exercised its authority to determine where they are required to live. Such situations are not unusual in Germany. However, they create huge complications for families doing any traveling.
The Pletts have their roots in Germany but had been living in Russia before returning. They decided to homeschool after the parents” perceived a negative influence of the public school onto their children.”
It was in 2005 when German authorities ordered decisions about the children’s residence given to the Youth Welfare Office without a hearing. The result was the family’s sudden move to Austria. Their further move came after Germany continued to try to exercise control of the family even while living in Austria.
In 2006, the Strasbourg, France-based court ruled in the Konrad case. In that dispute, Fritz and Marianna Konrad, who argued Germany’s compulsory school attendance endangered their children’s religious upbringing and promotes teaching inconsistent with the family’s Christian faith, were told they did not have a case.
The court said the Konrads belong to a “Christian community which is strongly attached to the Bible” and rejected public schooling because of the explicit sexual indoctrination programs that the courses there include.
The German court already had ruled that the parental “wish” to have their children grow up in a home without such influences “could not take priority over compulsory school attendance.” The decision also said the parents do not have an “exclusive” right to lead their children’s education.
“The parents’ right to education did not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience,” the decision said. “Not only the acquisition of knowledge, but also the integration into and first experience with society are important goals in primary school education. The German courts found that those objectives cannot be equally met by home education even if it allowed children to acquire the same standard of knowledge as provided for by primary school education.”
A website for the Practical Homeschool Magazine noted one of the first acts by Hitler when he moved into power was to create the governmental Ministry of Education and give it control of all schools, and school-related issues.
In 1937, the dictator said, “The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”
The sentences for Juergen and Rosemarie Dudek came in Germany’s equivalent of a district court in the state of Hesse, according to a staff attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association. The group, the premier homeschooling advocacy organization in the world, has been monitoring and helping in the Dudeks’ case since before a federal prosecutor announced his intention more than a year ago to see the parents behind bars.
Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented on the issue on a blog, noting the government “has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion.”
Drautz said schools teach socialization, and as WND reported, that is important, as evident in the government’s response when a German family in another case wrote objecting to police officers picking their child up at home and delivering him to a public school.
“The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling,” said a government letter in response. “… You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers. … In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement.”
Oral arguments were heard today in the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles, with the fate of homeschooling in California at stake.
As WND reported earlier, the court’s decision four months ago to compel two homeschooled children to attend a public or qualifying private school effectively stated that parents held neither a statutory right nor a constitutional right to provide homeschooling for their own children.
 HSLDA chairman, Michael Farris |
After much public and political outcry, the appeal court agreed to revisit its prior ruling.
Michael Farris, chairman and co-founder of the Homeschooling Legal Defense Association, was one of many attorneys from several organizations urging the court to reconsider, and he presented the day’s final argument.
“Anybody that claims they know which way the court will decide would be wrong,” Farris told WND.
“The judges asked very hard, pointed questions,” he said. “There was no indication that they thought their prior ruling was wrong.”
Specifically, Farris said, the judges asked why they should permit homeschooling when California changed the law to withdraw it from the statutes in the early 1900s.
Attorneys advocating homeschooling argued that when California in 1967 added the singular word “person” to the list of those that can operate a legitimate private school, it opened the door for homeschooling. “If a person can provide education, if one person can operate a school,” argued the attorneys, “then why not a parent?”
“Their questions were about the 1910s; our answer was from the 1960s,” Farris told WND.
Furthermore, said Farris, “I argued that the California constitution requires the state to encourage all education. It’s the court’s duty, rather than banning education, to encourage it.”
He also urged the judges to take into account the thousands of people who have implied from the 1967 law that homeschooling is permissible “and not willy-nilly overturn that practice.”
An estimated 166,000 children are being homeschooled in California, and their parents and advocates have expressed concern that the court’s original ruling would leave parents who educate their children at home open to criminal truancy charges and civil charges for child neglect.
Some grounds for that concern may come from the appeal court’s first ruling, where it said the trial court had found that “keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children’s lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ ‘cloistered’ setting.”
Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, a parental rights advocacy organization involved in the case, told WND earlier, “We are looking forward to this opportunity to defend the thousands of families who are making sacrifices to teach their children at home. The state should be applauding, not threatening, these families,” he said.
Though he expressed concern over which way the judges would decide, Farris told WND, “We hope that the court reverses its decision and restores homeschool freedom to California.”
POLICE STATE, GERMANY
Parents sent to jail for homeschooling
‘Words escape me, it’s unconscionable, incredible, shocking,’ says attorneyBy Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
A mother and father who have been homeschooling their children each have been ordered by a German judge to serve three-month prison terms after a prosecutor said he was unhappy with fines the family paid and he wanted the parents jailed.
The sentences for Juergen and Rosemarie Dudek were announced in Germany’s equivalent of a district court today in the state of Hesse, according to a staff attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association. The group, the premier homeschooling advocacy organization in the world, has been monitoring and helping in the Dudeks’ case since before a federal prosecutor announced his intention more than a year ago to see the parents behind bars.
“Words escape me, it’s unconscionable, incredible, shocking,” HSLDA staff attorney Mike Donnelly told WND after he got word of the sentence. “They’ll appeal of course.”
He said the prosecutor’s agenda is clear, with the mindset: “You guys are rebelling against the state. We’re going to punish you.”
Donnelly said work was begun immediately to pursue an appeal through the court system in the German state.
He described the sentences as “breathtaking.”
The prosecutor said at the time he would demand jail sentences of three months each for the parents. Muller also said he would not permit the case to be resolved with probation for the parents.
A newspaper reporter in Hesse, Harald Sagawe, said the parents previously paid fines because “they did not send their children to school, for religious reasons.”
He continued, “The parents, Christians who closely follow the Bible, teach their children themselves. Two years ago the court had also dealt with the Dudeks. That case, dealing with the payment of a fine, had been dropped.”
Judge Peter Hobbel, who imposed the fines, also criticized school officials for refusing to answer the family’s request for approval of their “private school.”
Arno Meissner, the chief of the government’s local education department, said he would enforce the mandatory school attendance law against the family, and he said he resented the judge’s interference.
“His duty is to make a judgment when the prosecutor brings a charge and to stay out of administrative matters,” Meissner said at the time.
The attitude is typical of some officials in Germany, where homeschooling has been stamped on since the Nazi era, critics say.
Practical Homeschool Magazine has noted one of the first acts by Hitler when he moved into power was to create the governmental Ministry of Education and give it control of all schools and school-related issues.
In 1937, the dictator said, “The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”
Joerg Grosseleumern, a spokesman for the the Netzwork-Bildungsfreiheit, a German homeschool advocacy group, said in Hesse a family’s failure to follow the mandatory public school attendance laws violates not only administration regulations but the criminal code.
“It is embarrassing the German officials put parents into jail whose children are well educated and where the family is in good order,” he wrote in an earlier alert about the situation. “We personally know the Dudeks as such a family.”
Officials in Hesse have said not even the family’s efforts to move out of the region would halt their prosecution.
HSLDA officials estimate there are some 400 homeschool families in Germany, virtually all of them either forced into hiding or facing court actions.
Just weeks ago, WND reported the Dudeks warned about a new German federal law that also gives family courts the authority to take custody of children “as soon as there is a suspicion of child abuse,” which is how the nation’s courts have defined homeschooling.
“The new law is seen as a logical step in carving up family rights after a federal court had decided that homeschooling was an abuse of custody,” said the letter from Juergen Dudek to the HSLDA.
The letter said local “youth welfare” offices’ new authority includes “withdrawal of parental custody as one of the methods for punishing ‘uncooperative’ parents.”
Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented on the issue on a blog, noting the government “has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion.”
Drautz said schools teach socialization, and as WND reported, that is important, as evident in the government’s response when a German family in another case wrote objecting to police officers picking their child up at home and delivering him to a public school.
“The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling,” said a government letter in response. “… You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers. … In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement.”
In recent years Germany has established a reputation for cracking down on parents who object, for reasons ranging from religious to social, to the nation’s public school indoctrination of their children.
WND has reported several times on custody battles, children being taken into custody and families even fleeing Germany because of the situation.
One of the higher-profile cases on which WND has reported was that of a teen who was taken by police to the psychiatric ward because she was homeschooled.
The courts ruled it was appropriate for a judge to order police officers to take Melissa Busekros, 15 at the time, into custody in January 2007.
Officials later declined to re-arrest her after she turned 16. She was subject to different requirements and simply fled state custody and returned to her family.
The Harsh Truth about Public Schools
You’ve Decided to Homeschool, Now What?
From: “Home School Legal Defense Association” <hslda@hslda.org>
Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 17:33:15 -0400
Subject: California–Court Filings Complete
============================================
From the HSLDA E-lert Service…
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California–Court Filings Complete
Dear HSLDA Members and Friends,
On May 19 all the filings of the legal briefs to re-hear the case In
re Rachel L. were completed.
The Court of Appeal, which made the fateful decision on February 28,
2008 to declare all homeschooling illegal unless the parent is a
certified teacher, will now begin the process of considering the
arguments. The current schedule anticipates oral arguments to begin
this June.
HSLDA has been at the forefront of the process to defend the right to
homeschool in California and across the country. In this case, we
were able to successfully help Gary Kreep of the U.S. Justice
Foundation, who represents the father at the center of this case, Mr.
L., to prepare the arguments to grant the petition for re-hearing.
When the Court of Appeal granted the petition for rehearing, the
original opinion was vacated and no longer has any legal effect.
Furthermore, in the latest round of filings, we have also been able to
provide substantial assistance to the Alliance Defense Fund, which is
partnering with the U.S. Justice Foundation in order to make the
strongest argument possible to preserve homeschool freedom in
California. So much is at stake, and all parties involved have shared
their unique perspective to present the best case possible.
HSLDA has also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in conjunction with
Focus on the Family and Family Protection Ministries to show the
benefits of a home education. These arguments draw on the extensive
development of homeschooling and the successful track record of
parents educating their children at home.
Also, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has filed a brief
(http://gov.ca.gov/pdf/press/051908Brief.pdf) in conjunction with the
Attorney General of California, which supports a parent’s right to
homeschool. Their brief begins with this statement: “Recognizing that
home-schooling has a long and positive history in California and
across the nation, the State of California provides a broad statutory
framework that authorizes and regulates the practice.” In other
words, the Governor and Attorney General are strongly arguing for no
changes to the current law.
While we do not know what the court will decide, you can be confident
that hundreds of hours were spent by many different organizations to
defend your right to homeschool.
We hope and pray for a successful outcome in this case.
Sincerely,
J. Michael Smith
HSLDA President
The HSLDA E-lert Service is a service of:
Home School Legal Defense Association
P.O. Box 3000
Purcellville, Virginia 20134
Phone: (540) 338-5600
Fax: (540) 338-2733
Email: info@hslda.org
Web: http://www.hslda.org
““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
The Governor has weighed in with an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief, saying that existing California law gives three different ways that parents can legally home educate. He says the only reason to consider constitutional issues is if specific cases fall outside of those three avenues.
Nineteen members of Congress also filed an amicus brief in favor of home education rights. CHEA and the other two statewide support networks joined together in their own amicus brief.
And other groups, including HSLDA, have submitted amicus briefs.
In case you have not seen the good summary on the status in California from HSLDA’s perspective, I’m including it below.
Gov. Arnold: Let homeschooling continue
‘State provides a broad statutory basis for education by parents in California’
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64830
Homeschool Groups Submit Appeal to Court
http://mountainenterprise.com/atf.php?sid=2944¤t_edition=2008-05-16