No. Here is my understanding of the case.
The family was operating under the aegis of a private Independent Study Program: Sunland Christian School. The ISP filed the R4 covering these kids. The administrators were apparently not satisfied with the children's progress and booted them out. At that point the parents had no coverage and no opportunity to file an R4 (which has a narrow time window in October). Their choice was to enroll their children in a public school or a private school or ISP. They chose the former.
CPS showed up and filed a case claiming child abuse. The parents were appointed a PUBLIC DEFENDER operating under contract to CPS (no conflict of interest there /s). The public defender dug out wild claims of Constitutional rights, etc, essentially creating the case against which the educrats would love to have a judgment. On appeal, they did.
It is the breadth of the opinion that is the real problem. It interprets the law specifying qualifications for in-home tutoring (which is apparently credential-only) to private schools operating in homes under R4; i.e., home education. It cites the State as a sole arbiter of what constitutes a satisfactory education (as if the state schools deliver such a product). As such, the opinion is a threat, as is evident from the celebratory statements from the CTA.
Your informative post has more on how this family got into this mess in the first place.
I believe you can file your R-4 at other times of the year, but usually it is recommended to be filed in October when all the other private schools also file. I have always filed then, so maybe it has changed and I have not noticed.
This family had terrible counsel. No counsel at all. I wish that they had contacted someone who could have helped them better. It did seem that this family was very vulnerable, and CPS knew it. Typical.
As I read it, the abuse charges were initiated by two of the children (with coaching) and are being employed as a mechanism to separate these children from their father for at least part of the day in public school.
Education, home schooling or otherwise, is not the county's emphasis in this case. It's physical child abuse. This is not the right case to pursue to the CSC. Depublishing the decision is a better bet.
Where did you hear that the family was booted out of the Sunland program?