The El Paso school district eventually asked the McIntyres to prove their children were being properly educated, and the couple later filed a lawsuit after they were charged with truancy. The district’s attendance officer, Mark Mendoza, met with the children’s grandparents, who said they anxious about their grandkids’ education.
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A lower court ruled against them, and now the Texas Supreme Court will decide whether religious parents should be forced to comply with educational standards.
On Monday, the Texas Supreme Court will hear a case involving El Paso parents who are accused of not providing a proper education for their children.
The family got on school officials’ radar when their oldest daughter ran away and tried to enroll in school. “She was placed in ninth grade, since officials weren’t sure she could handle higher-level work”. Laura McIntyre claims that she was using a curriculum created by Pensacola Christian College to teach children from a Christian perspective, but there’s no way to verify that.
“Tracy (McIntyre, Michael’s brother) overheard one of the McIntyre children tell a cousin that they did not need to do schoolwork because they were going to be raptured”, court documents show.
At issue: Where do religious liberty and parental rights to educate one’s own children stop and obligations to ensure home-schooled students ever actually learn something begin?
According to the lawsuit, the McIntyres maintain that the El Paso School District, which eventually asked the family to provide proof of their children’s education and led to the lawsuit, is biased against Christians. In another exchange, Laura McIntyre said she did not feel it would be “right” to submit documentation about her children’s schooling, according to court documents.
“Parents should be allowed to decide how to educate their children, not whether to educate their children”, said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Coalition for Responsible Home Education. But Laura McIntyre said she is “looking for a little clarification” as she continues to teach her youngest child.
More than three percent of all American students are homeschooled-a number that has been steadily climbing over the last decade or so.
The case could have sweeping consequences for the state’s estimated 300,000 homeschooled students, if the conservative Texas Supreme Court overturns the appeals court ruling.
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In all, 24 states have rules that home-school children undergo a few form of assessment, usually via standardized testing or portfolios of student work. “CurrentWebState. CurrentCourt%20+%20@%22&DT=Opinion”>ruled in the school district’s favor, finding that parents “do not have an absolute constitutional right to home school”, and that there is nothing in state law that precludes an attendance officer like Mendoza from investigating whether home-schooled children are actually learning.
