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N.H. Court Orders Home-Schooled Girl into Public School
CitizenLink ^ | 8-27-09 | Staff

Posted on 08/27/2009 11:21:03 PM PDT by kingattax

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has asked a New Hampshire court to reconsider its decision to order a 10-year-old home-schooled girl into public school.

"Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children," said ADF-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons. "In this case, the court is illegitimately altering a method of education that the court itself admits is working."

The parents of the girl are divorced, and the mother has been home-schooling her. In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the guardian ad litem concluded that the girl "appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith" and that the girl's interests "would be best served by exposure to a public school setting."

Judge Lucinda V. Sadler approved the recommendation and issued the order July 14.

"The New Hampshire Supreme Court itself has specifically declared, 'Home education is an enduring American tradition and right,' " said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. "There is clearly and without question no legitimate legal basis for the court's decision, and we trust it will reconsider its conclusions."

Mike Donnelly, staff attorney at the Home School Legal Defense Association, agreed this is "not the place for the courts to be inserting themselves."


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; US: New Hampshire
KEYWORDS: adf; homeschool; newhampshire
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To: ican'tbelieveit; xzins; blue-duncan; wmfights
Until rulings of such government are in direct conflict with God’s laws.

Are you suggesting that going to public school is a violation of God's laws?

Which of God's laws are violated by obeying a court order to go to a public school?

How do you know it isn't God's will that this girl go to public school.

She loves to witness to everyone she meets. Think of all the people she will meet. If she is as strong a Christian as she appears to be, then she will be mightily used by God as a witness to the heathen.

101 posted on 08/28/2009 2:57:03 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: wmfights

How is forcing the child into public school, being involved in her life. If the dad wanted to homeschool the daughter, you may have a point. Public school hours take up the majority of the day. There is actually less time for him and the mom btw to be involved in the daughter’s life.


102 posted on 08/28/2009 3:02:43 PM PDT by christianhomeschoolmommaof3
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To: ican'tbelieveit

“There are other reports out there that give plenty of detail to show the judgment to be in conflict with the findings.”

If you have been through a divorce then you know that reports cannot possibly reflect the raw emotions, fault on both parties, revenge, guilt, self-righteousness, outside influences and manipulation of children. That’s why the courts appoint guardian ad litems and counsel for the children usually with the approval of the parties counsel and then rely heavily on their reports.


103 posted on 08/28/2009 3:03:19 PM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: ican'tbelieveit
I am upset with the ruling, period.

That is entirely understandable. But the problem is that the parents are divorced and as such the best interests of the child are the jurisdiction of the courts when the parents cannot agree on a subject like this. Whenever the courts are required to make a ruling in a Family Law case, someone is going to walk away from the courthouse angry and someone else will walk away mad.

Generally the child is not well served by these proceedings and no matter what the ruling is, the child is not going to be happy. So no matter what the ruling is in a case like this you will have one happy venegeful parent and one unhappy "I'm a victim" parent and a child who is caught in the middle.

Effectivley in this case you have three children.

104 posted on 08/28/2009 3:03:46 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: blue-duncan

Well, we didn’t fight over the kids 10 years after we divorced. He knew I was going to take care of his kids, and provide them a home he never had and would provide them, so he let it go. I couldn’t imagine having this kind of battle 10 years after the divorce. Can you imagine the ongoing grief.

The guardian found the child to be well-adjusted in critical areas: socially, academically. The girl is attending public school, extra-curricular activities. This child is normal... until we don’t like her religious expression. We then choose to limit it. It is wrong, on that basis.


105 posted on 08/28/2009 3:07:23 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: metmom; GraniteStateConservative; Tired of Taxes; wintertime; bamahead

What are the laws regarding impeaching judges in New Hampshire?


106 posted on 08/28/2009 3:07:43 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued (Liberal sacred cows make great hamburger)
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To: P-Marlowe
I'm treating this as a child custody dispute where one parent wants what they think is best for the child and another parent wants what they think is best for the child and they are both acting like children and can't come to a reasonable agreement so the court has to step in and cut the child in half. I believe Wmfights is making the same point.

YES!

And the poor child is caught in the middle.

107 posted on 08/28/2009 3:08:02 PM PDT by wmfights (If you want change support SenateConservatives.com)
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To: ican'tbelieveit; P-Marlowe; blue-duncan
coming to their rescue

I'm asking a question. One would think that the "Christians" statement woulndn't pass muster from a Freeper who'd been here since 2000 about another Freeper who'd been here since 2000. I've been here since 1998.

I have been a fixture on the Religion Forum since its inception. One who has been there longer than me is P-Marlowe. He is so well known as an evangelical, witnessing Christian that the Religion Moderator is GodParent to his children. He's been a conservative Christian longer than Methusaleh, and he's been a practicing lawyer for decades.

So...you were saying?

108 posted on 08/28/2009 3:08:06 PM PDT by xzins (Chaplain Says: Jesus befriends all who ask Him for help.)
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To: P-Marlowe

Do you not see the hypocrisy in the ruling?


109 posted on 08/28/2009 3:08:59 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: xzins

You came to the rescue of your ping buddies. I don’t care how long you have been here, or anything else. You came to the rescue.


110 posted on 08/28/2009 3:09:48 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: P-Marlowe

I think the mother HAS compromised. She homeschools her in part and sends her to public school in part. How is sending her to public school FULL time a compromise for the father?


111 posted on 08/28/2009 3:12:58 PM PDT by christianhomeschoolmommaof3
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To: P-Marlowe

I didn’t put my kids in public school for the very reason that I felt the godless indoctrination occurring in them violated the command from God to bring up a child in the way that he should go. To teach them at home ont way to live, then force them to endure pressure that is directly opposed to this belief is, simply, wrong. For me, it would have been a sin, because I was convicted that it was wrong.


112 posted on 08/28/2009 3:14:00 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: Awestruck
Having just gotten out of a longterm abusive marriage, where the father of my child refused visitation for months and then suddenly started forcing the issue upon a child who wasn’t willing, I can tell you that not all men care about their kids as much as they care about punishing the child’s mother.

I'm very sorry to hear of the ordeal you and your child are going through. I pray in time things work out.

Unless the child is clearly unhappy, doing poorly with her studies, or clearly abused, the courts need to stay out of her life altogether.

The problem is in this case the parents brought the court into it. In a better world, they would have sat down and tried to work out what's in the child's best interest.

113 posted on 08/28/2009 3:15:09 PM PDT by wmfights (If you want change support SenateConservatives.com)
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To: ican'tbelieveit

That is our belief as well. Very well stated.


114 posted on 08/28/2009 3:21:06 PM PDT by christianhomeschoolmommaof3
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To: ican'tbelieveit
” This child is normal... until we don’t like her religious expression. We then choose to limit it. It is wrong, on that basis.”

We do not know what the child did to cause the guardian ad litem to come to the conclusion that what she displayed “appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith”. I have seen this over the years in divorce cases and usually it manifests itself in the child censoriously questioning a parents faith, habits, relationships and/or refusing to visit or having prior commitments when visitation should take place.

There is no evidence that the court ruled against the child's religion. It did not order her to stop attending her church or her church's activities nor did it rule that the mother stop teaching her according to her beliefs after school. This is a child of God, just as Daniel and his buddies were when they were taken from their families and transported to the government schools in Babylon. God is able to deliver and protect His own.

115 posted on 08/28/2009 3:26:31 PM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: ican'tbelieveit; blue-duncan; xzins; P-Marlowe
You are really hoping for that, aren’t you?

I can't believe the direction this is taking.

From the seriousness with which we take the subject matter I suspect we are all parents and want the best for children.

Really have a thing against mothers and Christians.

You haven't been on the religion threads too much have you?

116 posted on 08/28/2009 3:26:58 PM PDT by wmfights (If you want change support SenateConservatives.com)
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To: blue-duncan

We do. It is in the reports. Read them.


117 posted on 08/28/2009 3:28:06 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: wmfights

No. I don’t go on the religion threads. If you continue to follow the thread, you will see I explain myself to the poster. Quit trying so hard to defend.


118 posted on 08/28/2009 3:29:00 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: xzins; ican'tbelieveit; P-Marlowe

“He’s been a conservative Christian longer than Methusaleh, and he’s been a practicing lawyer for decades.”

He is really old, isn’t he. He probably has those little hairs growing on top of his ears.


119 posted on 08/28/2009 3:29:53 PM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: christianhomeschoolmommaof3
How is forcing the child into public school, being involved in her life.

It doesn't sound like the views the mom is teaching are as Christian as we would like to believe. If they were why would the court rule for the father. Family courts are notoriously pro mother.

120 posted on 08/28/2009 3:38:29 PM PDT by wmfights (If you want change support SenateConservatives.com)
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