New bill aims to protect home-schooled Oklahoma children from abuse, neglect
By Jason Burger
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OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (KOCO) — A new bill in the state legislature aims to protect home-schooled Oklahoma children from abuse and neglect.
Some parents argued it goes too far. The bill’s author said it stems from children missing days at public school and if parents have nothing to hide, there will be no problem.
“I think the people that follow the rules, and take care of their kids and genuinely have good intentions. They’re already going to do those things,” said Janetta Morton, a homeschool mom.
Morton is against House Bill 4130, which would require parents wanting to homeschool, micro-school, or pod-school their children to send in a letter of intent to the Department of Human Services.
“I think it’s a lot of overreach. I think DHS is spread very thin,” Morton said.
She said DHS should not be involved in the process at all. If passed, the bill would require DHS to do a background check on those parents and any adults living at the home where children are being taught.
“Most often, whenever they did that, they would not get a response from parents, and usually the next step was that they’d just withdraw their child from school,” said Rep. Amanda Swope of District 71.
Swope said she comes from a juvenile justice background, a big influence for the bill, and she noticed a trend with children who were missing lots of school after the administration contacted their parents.
“A lot of kids are just withdrawn from school, without actually being put into any kind of homeschool structure,” Swope said.
Parents or homeschool teachers would not be allowed to teach the children if they had a pending child abuse or neglect investigation or similar prior record.
“It would really only be those parents where you have prior convictions of abuse or neglect and you are making that choice where there would be any sort of impact to you or your family,” Swope said.
A group called Homeschool Oklahoma said there will be families at the Capitol on Tuesday morning standing up for homeschool freedom.
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