Posted on 06/13/2003 12:26:29 PM PDT by pabianice
"We have legal custody of the children and we will do with them as we see fit," DSS worker Susan Etscovitz told the Bryants in their Gale Street home. "They are minors and they do what we tell them to do!"
WALTHAM, MA -- A legal battle over two home-schooled children exploded into a seven-hour standoff yesterday, when they refused to take a standardized test ordered by the Department of Social Services.
George Nicholas Bryant, 15, and Nyssa Bryant, 13, stood behind their parents, Kim and George, as police and DSS workers attempted to collect the children at 7:45 a.m. DSS demanded that the two complete a test to determine their educational level.
After a court order was issued by Framingham Juvenile Court around 1 p.m., the children were driven by their parents to a Waltham hotel.
Again, they refused to take the test.
"The court order said that the children must be here. It said nothing about taking the test," said George Bryant.
The second refusal came after an emotion-filled morning for the family, when DSS workers sternly demanded the Bryants comply with their orders.
"We have legal custody of the children and we will do with them as we see fit," DSS worker Susan Etscovitz told the Bryants in their Gale Street home. "They are minors and they do what we tell them to do."
Four police officers were also at the scene and attempted to coax the Bryants to listen to the DSS worker.
"We are simply here to prevent a breach of the peace," said Waltham Youth Officer Detective James Auld. "We will will not physically remove the children."
Yesterday's events are the continuation of a six-year legal battle between the family and Waltham Public Schools and the state.
The Bryants contend that the city and state do not have the legal right to force their children to take standardized tests, even though DSS workers have threatened to take their children from them.
"There have been threats all along. Most families fall to that bullying by the state and the legal system," said George Bryant.
"But this has been a six-year battle between the Waltham Public Schools and our family over who is in control of the education of our children," Bryant continued. "In the end the law of this state will protect us."
The Bryant children have never attended public school.
Both sides agree that the children are in no way abused mentally, physically, sexually or emotionally, but legal custody of the children was taken from Kim and George Bryant in December 2001. The children will remain under the legal custody of DSS until their 16th birthdays.
The parents have been ruled as unfit because they did not file educational plans or determine a grading system for the children, two criteria of Waltham Public School's home schooling policy.
"We do not believe in assessing our children based on a number or letter. Their education process is their personal intellectual property," said Bryant.
George Bryant said he was arrested six years ago, after not attending a meeting that the city contends he was summoned to. The meeting was called by the Waltham School Department for his failure to send his children to school.
"We want these issues aired in the open, in public. The school system and DSS have fought to keep this behind closed doors," said Bryant.
Superintendent of Schools Susan Parrella said she was unaware of yesterday's incident and that, currently the school department approves of the education plan filed by DSS for the Bryant children.
"An acceptable home school plan is in place right now," said Parrella. "I was not aware of any testing occurring today."
The Bryant children freely admit that they have no intention of taking a test.
"We don't want to take the test. We have taken them before and I don't think they are a fair assessment of what we know," said Nyssa Bryant. "And no one from DSS has ever asked us what we think."
Kenneth Pontes, area director of DSS, denied that workers have never talked to the children privately, but admitted that this type of case isn't often seen by his office.
"This is an unusual case. Different school systems require different regulations for home-schooled children. Waltham requires testing," said Pontes.
Pontes said that a possibility exists that the children will be removed from their home, but that was a last course of action.
"No one wants these children to be put in foster homes. The best course of action would for (the Bryants) to instruct the children to take the test," said Etscovitz.
The Bryant family is due in Framingham District Court this morning, to go before a juvenile court judge. According to DSS, this session will determine what their next course of action will be and if the children will be removed from the Bryants' home.
"These are our children and they have and always will be willing participants in their education," said Kim Bryant.
Come to Texas and escape the tyrany. Our ciriculum must teach reading, writing, arithmatic, and good citizenship. They don't care what you use for a ciriculum. The Leeper vs. Texas case was our test case and when it was decided, we were left alone, forever.
God put a hedge around this family, and all the rest that risk so much to do what is right, in Jesus Name, AMEN.
Nearly 150 years ago R.L. Dabney noted: The education of children for God is the most important business done on earth. It is the business for which the earth exist. To it all politics, all war, all literature, all money-making,ought to be subordinated; and every parent especially ought to feel, every hour of the day, that, next to making his own calling and election sure, this is the end for which he is kept alive by God---this is his task on earth.
Exactly the point.
The government does NOT own my children.
I nominate this the quote of the day.
As for the others, thank you. You have won me over to your side and that is what this forum is all about.
That being the case, I am certainly against the gestapo tactics being used here by the DSS.
The Left pretends the controversy is a matter of testing v. no testing, with those favoring testing on the side of the angels. But of course that's not so. The issue is who -- parents or busybody social workers -- gets to pick which test and when.
That's important, because the _ultimate_ underlying issue is which government -- family or state -- has final authority over children.
Trying to split the difference on the issue is like saying: "The state may have its taxes as long as there are no audits." In the real world, of course, you don't get one without the other.
The first cause of bureaucratic abuse is sin. But sovereign immunity is a close second. Every organization has petty tyrants in its ranks. But only the state gives them near blanket protection.
There will be no peace until the law stops shielding injustice merely because it is perpetuated by an agent of the state. Until then, outrages like this one will continue to be just the tip of the iceberg.
Both parts of the fix would be major battles. So prudence suggests focusing on the one that is more important. Lifting sovereign immunity is more important because it could benefit those abused by nearly all bureaucratic thugs, not just social workers.
No. All this over power -- who has it, the family, and who wants it, the state.
Thank you. I have to rearrange my world view in some areas.
This is one of those times when a few more good lawyers come in handy.
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