Family Law

Oklahoma and California Are At Opposite Ends Of The Homeschooling Spectrum

By Dan Nunley, Esq.

Oklahoma is the friendliest state to home schooling parents because Oklahoma is the only state that has a constitutional provision guaranteeing parents the right to educate their children at home. Because of that, Oklahoma may see an influx of home schooling families from California in the near future if a California appellate court's recent ruling is not overturned. It would be The Grapes of Wrath in reverse. Instead of Okies traveling to California in search of employment, we'll see Californians making the trek to Oklahoma in search of educational freedom.

The California state appellate court held that California parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children and further held that only parents who have state licensed teaching credentials for the specific grade being taught may home school their children.

Unlike Oklahoma, home schooling is not specifically addressed in California law. Under California's state education code, students must be enrolled in a public or private school, or can be taught at home by a credentialed tutor. The California Department of Education currently allows home schooling as long as parents file paperwork with the state establishing themselves as small private schools, hire credentialed tutors or enroll their children in independent study programs run by charter or private schools or public school districts while still teaching at home.

A Los Angeles Times' article reports "Glenn and Kathleen, a Sacramento-area couple who requested that their last name not be used for fear of prosecution, home school their 9-year-old son Hunter because their Christian beliefs would be contradicted in a public school setting, Glenn said. He is troubled by the idea that his son would be exposed to teachings about evolution, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and sex education ."I want to have control over what goes in my son's head, not what's put in there by people who might be on the far left who have their own ideas about indoctrinating kids," he said. If the ruling takes effect, Glenn vowed to move his family out of state. "If I can't home school my son in California, we're going to have to end up leaving California. That's how important it is to me."

This is a controversy that demands the attention of all California parents. And parents in other states including Oklahoma must not become complacent. After all, if parents have no constitutional right to educate their own children, what other aspects of the parent's choices for their own children lack protection? This question reaches far beyond educational decisions.

Following is some basic law regarding the right of Oklahoma parents to home school their children:

Oklahoma law does not require parents to have state teaching certificates, to use state-approved curriculum, to initiate contact with, to be registered with, or to seek approval from state or local education officials, to test their students, or to permit inspection of their homes by state or local education officials. If a parent is teaching a child the basic core subjects for at least 180 days per year, the law requires nothing more.

Article 13 Section 4's "other means of education" language is directly applicably to home schooling because that particular phrase was added to the Constitution for the specific purpose of protecting the rights of parents who choose to home school. In 1907 during the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention, a Mr. Buchanan, one of the delegates, proposed that the phrase "unless other means of education be provided" be added to Article 13 Section 4. Favorably responding to Mr. Buchanan's proposal, another delegate, Mr. Baker, said "I think Mr. Buchanan has suggested a solution. A man's own experience sometimes will teach him. I have two little fellows who are not attending a public school because it is too far for them to walk and their mother makes them study four hours a day." As a result of this discussion on home schooling, the "other means of education" language was added to the Oklahoma Constitution.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court in School Bd. Dist. No. 18 Garvin County v. Thompson upheld parental rights against the public school's authority. The Court held that "under our form of government ... the home is considered the key stone of the governmental structure. In this empire, parents rule supreme during the minority of their children ... they may ... withdraw them entirely from public schools and send them to private schools, or provide for them other means of education."

In Snyder v. Asbery (No. 78,045, Oklahoma Court of Appeals, Div. 2, May 18, 1993), the Oklahoma Court of Appeals ordered that two home schooled children be returned to the custody of their father, reversing a trial court's decision. The Court held that "the State Department of Education has no jurisdiction in home schooling."

Full post as published by Oklahoma Family Law Blog on March 09, 2008 (boomark / email).