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.
But if parents ever said something like that before witness, the children would be taken away from the authoritarian patriarchal oppressors, and given to the adorably sensitive State nannies ... for their own good, of course!
What gives the state the right to impose such a rule in the first place?
The interesting thing is that the Supreme Judicial Court has said (Care and Protection of Charles) that the state cannot require standardized testing. I'm not up on the specifics of this particular case, and I'd be interested in knowing how DSS got legal custody. I'm sure the fact that DSS has legal (though not physical) custody changes the situation. But I don't know how and why they got it. But we're homeschooling our 4 in Massachusetts right now, and if there were ever a demand that we submit them to standardized tests, we'd have them see our lawyer, and we'd win...
Jack Stratton gets 30-day sentence for disobeying court gag order
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.
These parents don't abuse their children, like the headline reads. They were ruled as unfit because they don't want the public school system sticking it's nose in their kids education.
I may call the HSLDA about this one.
I don't recall reading an article that's ever made me angrier. I would see every case worker dead before they would take my children from me.
Oh, you poor dear! I'm going to go pray for you (and this courageous family) right now!
The social work "profession" has been out of control since the 1940s in the area of child warfare. The history of social work as a "profession" is most instructive on this issue. As it began to be taught as a discipline at university social wreckers almost immediately wanted to be recognized as professionals on par with physicians. They styled themselves as child welfare experts and began a concerted effort to insinuate themselves into the maternity home movement, notable the Crittenden Mission. The maternity homes had been operated primarily by benevolent, church affiliated women's associatons up until about 1945. The maternity home mission pre-1945 was to help unmarried mothers prepare for the life challenges of raising their children alone. It was considered very very bad to separate children from their blood families.
When the wreckers came along, they substituted a Freudian and atheistic view of unwed motherhood for the Christian view that had been used before. In the Freudian view, unwed mothers were suddenly labeled "neurotic" and "unfit" instead of being viewed as "fallen sisters" as they had been in the Christian view. Forced removal of the child and placement into secret closed adoption was portrayed as the only remedy for such neurotic, hypersexualized beings as an unwed 17 year old!! Unopposed, and even aided by the restrictive laws at the time, the social work profession removed over 170,000 children a year from their blood families during the peak years of 1968 - 1970. These children were placed into adoptive families for exorbitant "donations." One social work textbook had this to say ; "Because there are many more married couples wanting to adopt newborn white babies than there are babies, it may almost be said that they rather than out of wedlock babies are a social problem. (Sometimes social workers in adoption agencies have facetiously suggested setting up social provisions for more 'babybreeding'.)" SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS, National Association of Social Workers, (Out-of-print) copyright 1964
( By way of an inetersting comparison, here is a quote regarding the lifelong aftereffects of such action: ""A grief reaction unique to the relinquishing mother was identified. Although this reaction consists of features characteristic of the normal grief reaction, these features persist and often lead to chronic, unresolved grief. CONCLUSIONS: The relinquishing mother is at risk for long-term physical, psychologic, and social repercussions. Although interventions have been proposed, little is known about their effectiveness in preventing or alleviating these repercussions." Journal of Obstetric, Gynecological and Neonatal Nursing, 1999 Jul-Aug; pp. 395-400 . ) The life long effects on women who lost children in this coercive way are currently the subject of much documentation. History shall decide the outcome. In the meantime, all the knowledge and technique gained in the adoption arena between 1945 and 1975 is currently being applied to American families deemed "unfit" by social wreckers.
For many reasons, the number of children placed for adoption has declined in this country since the 1970s. Social workers turned their eyes to fostercare work in a bid to replace income and status lost with the decline of "voluntary" adoption.( I use quotes because the mothers of these children almost unanimously claim the adoptions were not voluntay, but coerced , even forced) . With the Mondale Act of 1974 providing federal funds for every child "rescued" from "abusive" parents and placed in "safe" foster homes, they had their replacement popluation and funding.
All you have to do is connect the dots
But...
The best course of action would for (the Bryants) to instruct the children to take the test," said Etscovitz.
Or else!
I support home-schooling and indeed, a neighbor of mine home schools her children. I think it's great when it can be arranged. However, I must say that I see nothing wrong with periodic testing (similar to what children in school receive) to ensure that the children are actually being taught something.
The family in question here appears to be a decent family. But what if the situation was different. What if it was a unwed mother on welfare who purported to "teach her kids at home" but instead sat on her ass watching soap operas and game shows all day while she let her kids run wild? Would Freepers have a problem with that or would they say that the welfare mom has a right to not educate her kids, ensuring that they amount to nothing in society (like her).
I think as a society, we owe it to ensure that our children receive a good education and a fighting chance to lead a productive and worthwhile life. Most of the time, the family ensures that they do. But certainly there are unfit parents out there who do not attend to the educational needs of their children (not talking about the family mentioned here).
Is the annual testing of home-school children such a bad thing? I'm not convinced that it is. I think it's a good measuring stick with which to compare against children who attend public school. In fact, I would venture to say that the average home-schooled child would perform better on average than the public-schooled pupil.
That being the case, I am certainly against the gestapo tactics being used here by the DSS. The DSS witch who said "your children belong to us and we can do what we want with them" deserves a smack in the jaw.
Children in public schools are tested to determine if taxpayers are getting their money's worth out of teachers.
Children in public schools are tested to determine if they are receiving the services they have willingly sought .
Children in public schools are tested so that they can be brainwashed with a bunch of liberal nonsense while they are a captive audience (a.k.a the Reading Comprehension test).
Children in public schools are tested to determine if they have learning disabilities (last I checked medical information was supposed to be confidential).
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