Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Appeals court ruling allays state home-schoolers' concerns
By Emma Anderson
Daily Californian, UC-Berkeley
August 11, 2008

A ruling made by an appeals court Friday allows home-schoolers in California to breathe easier, but alludes to future legislative action.

California's Second District Court of Appeal ruled that home schooling is permitted in the state of California as a form of private schooling, canceling out their previous ruling that California law does not permit home schooling unless the teacher has the proper credentials.

The court previously ruled on Feb. 28 in a case involving a home-school family of eight children-where the mother obtained only an 11th-grade education and the father was abusive-that children must be educated by someone with teaching credentials.

The original ruling caused quite a stir within the home-schooling community throughout the state.

"It put people into a panic," said Maxina Ventura, a Berkeley resident who home schools her three children and is part of Family Village Homeschoolers, a home-school organization in Berkeley. "It turned people away from doing what may be best for their kids."

However, because the court's duty is to interpret, not enforce laws, "panic" and some confusion is what the ruling really resulted in.

"We were waiting to see action after the first ruling," said Mark Coplan, spokesperson for Berkeley Unified School District. "Parents were concerned," said Mark Coplan, spokesperson for Berkeley Unified School District, "Now this just puts us back where we started."

When people caught wind of the ruling, some worried whether legislative action would follow to back it up. Some parents looked into how they would meet the requirement.

"My (niece) is home schooling and she thought she'd go back and get her teaching credential," said Redwood City resident Diane Flynn Keith, who runs an online resource for home schooling families called Homefires. "Another person wanted to move to Nevada if restrictions were passed in California."

Keith said communication among home-schoolers quelled much of the concerns. Keith and others told home-schoolers to wait and see what would happen with the ruling and that an appeal in the case would most likely take place.

Though the recent ruling appears to be "a victory for ... the education community," as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement, language in the ruling hints that legislative action should be taken to address the lack of regulation of home schooling. Friday's ruling states that "Given the state's compelling interest in educating all of its children ... additional clarity in this area would be helpful."

"It's always possible that (the) legislature will require supervision ... like how some states require more restrictive testing and curriculum," Keith said.

She said she believed that having credentials would never be a requirement for parents who home school their children. In fact, Keith, Coplan and Ventura all said that requiring parents to have credentials, as the original ruling had dictated, would only hurt students.

"To get credentials, it's a one-year program," Ventura said. "(It) would only get in the way."

According to Coplan, there has never been a problem with home-school parents in Berkeley concerning their ability to teach.

"The reason the parents home school is that they are already committed to education," he said.

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