The part of the story that I found... ummm... interesting .... is the part about the school district just being so upset to the point of harassing the homeschoolers. In the district where my wife teaches they don't give a second thought to homeschoolers. The attitude is you want to homeschool your kid... great.... go after it. When he wants a drivers license come let us know and we'll give him the state mandated test. When he wants a GED.. come let us know and we'll give him the state mandated test. Other than that... they are happy with out of sight out of mind.
In the district where my wife teaches they don't give a second thought to homeschoolers.You may just be lucky. In a lot of districts - entire states, even - harrassment of homeschooled children is school system policy because the amount of money each local school district gets is directly based on the number of enrolled students. One less kid at a public school desk = many thousands less in funding for the district. So they try to "encourage" as many parents as possible to give in and send their kids to public schools.
It's all about the Benjamins.