The image of home-schoolers facing prosecution and jail is being rekindled as a southwestern Idaho legislator questions the Department of Health and Welfare's oversight of private schools.
The crucible in which each home school is tested is the decades-old "comparable education" provision of Idaho's compulsory education law. Local school boards decide if the children are getting the same opportunity to learn at home as they would in public or accredited parochial schools.Except for reviewing educational materials and requiring annual progress reports, the state has tried to keep its hands off families who prefer to instruct their children in the privacy of their kitchens or living rooms.
Until now, says Rep. Elizabeth Allan-Hodge of Nampa.
The Republican advocate of free enterprise has spent two months on the road, warning Idaho parents that Health and Welfare has ignored the Legislature and extended its tendrils into home schools. The state has no estimate of the prevalence of home schooling, but officials believe the number of home schoolers is extremely small.
The allegation is unwarranted, says Rep. Brent Brocksome, R-Boise, but a special committee he serves on has drafted legislation to allay fears of home schoolers or day-care operators.
"I've never heard of anyone suggesting that we regulate home schools," Brocksome said. "It all boils down to parental responsibility. If the parents are responsible, there's no problem at all."
Still, Allan-Hodge said she has received petitions with hundreds of signatures of parents concerned about the state influence on private education.
The tragic side of home schools was spotlighted in the early 1980s when the parents of three New Plymouth families were jailed after refusing to send their school-age children to class or indicate how they were instructed.
Since then, the issue has cooled somewhat as most families work with school boards to provide an acceptable curriculum. The latest flare-up came this year when two families sued the Boise School Board, contesting its right to scrutinize their programs.
In 1988, a year after the state enacted regulations for day-care centers, Allan-Hodge offered a bill exempting private day and home schools. It was approved by both houses, but Gov. Cecil Andrus vetoed it and appointed a panel of Health and Welfare officials and private school administrators to produce appropriate regulations.
Health and Welfare never sent that panel's recommendations to the Legislature, Allan-Hodge said, submitting instead its own regulatory framework that both omitted public facilities from oversight and spotlighted private ones for possible management in the future.
The panel issued a letter saying no guidelines should be implemented without more study, but Allan-Hodge says Health and Welfare put its own scheme in place anyway.
Health and Welfare's standards for "private children's institutions" require such things as opening records to show they have enough money to operate for at least another year, a one-to-six ratio of teachers to students and 200 square feet of outdoor space for each child, she said.
An interim legislative panel met last summer to decide if day-care facilities and home schools should be exempted, but Allan-Hodge said an exemption would just open the way for state control in the future.
"The private day schools and the private home educators I've talked with say they don't want exemptions because they know when you put an exemption on something you also are subject to having it removed," Allan-Hodge said.
Brocksome contests her claim that Health and Welfare is casting its influence over the family schools. His committee's draft clarifies that children's institutions do not include home schools.
"Any people opposed to this will see it's an attempt for statewide uniformity and to show that home schools and day schools are not included," Brocksome said.
The interim committee focused on 24-hour residential schools which offer treatment or therapy, said Ken Patterson, administrator of Health and Welfare's family and children's services division. It called for a criminal history check on all owners, operators and volunteers in those centers.
"We're adding definition to a longstanding tradition in Idaho," Patterson said. "The Idaho Youth Ranch, for example, has always provided education as well as treatment."
In setting rules more than 30 years ago, the state could not have expected as many private treatment centers would spring up, he said.
Those residential schools accredited by the Idaho Department of Education remain under its auspices, while those without certification are the jurisdiction of Health and Welfare as a treatment facility.
Brocksome and Allan-Hodge agree the state already has the right to step in if it suspects violations, such as in the case of the Deliverance Ranch Academy for troubled boys in a remote section of Owyhee County. It was closed down in 1986 for operating without a license. It also was charged with injury to a child.
Some private facilities that are licensed by the state are the Eagle Mountain Outpost at Sagle, Rocky Mountain Academy at Bonners Ferry and the Spirit Mountain Treatment Center in Spirit Lake, Patterson said.
"Our experience in our last licensing is that I have no complaint at all with Health and Welfare," said Brenda Hammond, director of Eagle Mountain Outpost which treats troubled boys. "They seem to be human beings who are reasonable and concerned with youth."
But she was distressed at the way the department implemented the regulations, effectively without any warning.
"I am alarmed at the kind of arbitrary power the agency seems to exert in enacting regulations without legislative oversight," she said. "It seems really un-American."