Mother arrested for homeschooling after school system failed her children
02/09/2017 / By Jayson Veley
There are many different reasons why parents make the decision to home-school their children, and often, the results are extremely positive. Several studies indicate that children who are home-schooled are more likely to excel academically, and in many cases even score higher on standardized tests than the national average. One nationwide study found that home-schooled students scored in the eightieth percentile for every test category, compared to the fiftieth percentile, which happens to be the national average. [RELATED: Facts about homeschooling show promising results.]
Because of the extraordinary benefits detailed in numerous studies, many parents come to the conclusion that homeschooling is a far better choice than public education. [RELATED: Why more and more parents are opting for homeschooling over our brainwashing education system.]
When single mother Kiarre Harris of Buffalo, New York made the decision to home-school her children, she never expected to wind up being taken away in handcuffs. She, like thousands of other parents across the country, simply wanted to give her kids a quality education, not once considering that there would ever be any legal issues. But despite her best intentions, things didn’t exactly go as planned.
Kiarre Harris originally sent her children to Buffalo Public Schools. But when she started to believe that the school system was failing her kids, she decided it was time to take them out and try homeschooling. She filled out all of the necessary paperwork and also filed an individualized educational program so that she could home-school her elementary school kids.
“I spoke directly to a home-school coordinator and she told me from this point on my children were officially un-enrolled from school,” Harris told WKBW. But even though she was careful to carry out the entire process properly, things still took a turn for the worse.
Just one week later, Harris received a call from Child Protective Services. When they asked her why her kids were no longer attending school, she explained that she had taken them out so that they could be home-schooled, and that she had all of the paperwork for them to review if it was necessary.
About one month later, in mid-January, Kiarre Harris noticed several police cars outside of her home as she was driving by. One of them followed her for a few blocks until she finally pulled over. The officer handed her a court summons for child neglect, and when Harris refused to hand her kids over to the authorities, she was arrested for obstruction of justice.
The children were located shortly after the arrest and placed into a foster care system.
In a Facebook video published on her page, Kiarre Harris explains that Buffalo City Hall never reached out to her kids’ former school to notify them that they were now being home-schooled. The school, thinking that Harris was illegally preventing them from being in attendance, contacted Child Protective Services and filled them in on the entire situation.
Harris told WKBW that it has been three weeks since she has seen her children. She is now being forced to not only deal with her obstruction-of-justice charge in court, but she is also fighting separately to get her kids back into her custody.
“This should not have happened,” said Franklin Redd, a representative from the District Parent Coordinating Council. “Someone along the way… should have simply said, ‘Wait a minute, CPS should not be in here,’ the principal should have been circled back to and told these students were unenrolled.”
Councilman Ulysees Wingo spoke out on the matter at a Buffalo Common Council meeting that took place earlier this week, calling the fact that Harris was arrested “utterly unacceptable.”
“Someone, somewhere messed up,” he said, “and that someone needs to face the music.”
For more homeschooling stories, visit Homeschooling.news.
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Tagged Under: education, homeschooling, parents rights
