The California Ruling that effectively renders it illegal to homeschool without teaching credentials has multiple ways in which it violates parental rights, limits education choices and marginalizes the religious convictions of American citizens. All of which makes the ruling dangerous for every American.

Firstly, the three judges in the California case, Justices Croskey, Klein and Kitching, unanimously determined that it is unconstitutional for Californians to homeschool, which significantly sets back the clock on parental rights. It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that all parents are guaranteed the freedom of choice regarding education, the freedom of religion and the freedom to raise their child; not the government’s role to decide how, what and where a parent’s child is educated. My children belong to me, not to the state. The government is meant to serve me, not the other way around. Limiting any of these fundamental freedoms to dictate the course of my child’s upbringing is not only an egregious injustice, but a serious violation of our alienable rights as Americans that millions have given their lives to preserve.

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On February 28, 2008 Justice Walter Croskey opined in a California ruling that is it illegal to homeschool in California, unless the parent has a teaching credential. The Justice’s opinion has stirred tremendous controversy among homeschool advocates. His ruling could be used to bring criminal charges against the 166,000 homeschooling families in California. 

I wonder if this ruling isn’t only three Judge’s opinions but also a way for the California Department of Education to funnel billions of dollars into its coffers.  Let’s do the math. California’s current cost to educate one child is $7905.00. If 166,000 more children were forced to return to the public system of education, which is the apparent intent and consequence of Judge Croskey’s ruling, that would mean that over 1 billion more dollars would flow into the California Department of Education.(166,000 X $7905.00 = 1, 312, 230, 000.00 dollars) 

That must be because the 60 Billion taxpayer dollars (NCES 2006 Data) that California now gets just isn’t enough money, right? 

As one blogger put it “Home schoolers are a direct threat to the government employees union cartel.”

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today issued the following statement regarding the recentSecond District Court of Appeals ruling on home schooling:“Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decidewhat’s best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests oftheir children’s education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don’t protect parents’ rights then, as elected officials, we will.”

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION THREE
In re RACHEL L. et al., Persons Coming
Under the Juvenile Court Law.
B192878
JONATHAN L. and MARY GRACE L.,
Petitioners,
v.
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF
CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF
LOS ANGELES,
Respondent;
___________________________________
LOS ANGELES COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND
FAMILY SERVICES,
Real Party in Interest.
(Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No. JD00773)
ORIGINAL PROCEEDINGS in mandate. Stephen Marpet, Temporary Judge.
(Pursuant to Cal. Const., art. VI, § 21.) Writ granted.
Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles, Cameryn Schmidt and
Christine Caldwell, for Petitioners.
No appearance for Respondent.
2
Raymond G. Fortner, Jr., County Counsel, Larry Cory, Assistant County Counsel
and Judith A. Luby, for Real Party in Interest.
___________________________________________
3
In this dependency case (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 300), we consider the question
whether parents can legally “home school” their children. The attorney for two of the
three minor children in the case has petitioned this court for extraordinary writ relief,
asking us to direct the juvenile court to order that the children be enrolled in a public or
private school, and actually attend such a school.

The trial court’s reason for declining to order public or private schooling for the
children was its belief that parents have a constitutional right to school their children in
their own home. However, California courts have held that under provisions in the
Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their
children. Thus, while the petition for extraordinary writ asserts that the trial court’s
refusal to order attendance in a public or private school was an abuse of discretion, we
find the refusal was actually an error of law. It is clear to us that enrollment and
attendance in a public full-time day school is required by California law for minor
children unless (1) the child is enrolled in a private full-time day school and actually
attends that private school, (2) the child is tutored by a person holding a valid state
teaching credential for the grade being taught, or (3) one of the other few statutory
exemptions to compulsory public school attendance (Ed. Code, § 48220 et seq.) applies
to the child. Because the parents in this case have not demonstrated that any of these
exemptions apply to their children, we will grant the petition for extraordinary writ.

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE

A Welfare and Institutions Code section 300 petition was filed on behalf of three
minor children after the eldest of them reported physical and emotional mistreatment by
the children’s father. The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family
Services investigated the situation and discovered, among other things, that all eight of
the children in the family had been home schooled by the mother rather than educated in
a public or private school.

The attorney representing the younger two children asked the juvenile court to
order that the children be enrolled in a public or private school. The dependency court declined to make such an order despite the court’s opinion that the home schooling the children were receiving was “lousy,” “meager,” and “bad,” and despite the court’s opinion that keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children’s lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ “cloistered” setting. As noted above, the court ruled that the parents have a constitutional right to home school the children. From that ruling the attorney for the younger children seeks extraordinary writ relief.

DISCUSSION

1. California’s Provisions for Compulsory Education of Minor Children

Article IX, section 1 of California’s Constitution states: “A general diffusion of
knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties

Over the years, the parents of the children have given various reasons for not
sending the children to school. Although previously they stated they do not believe in the policies of the public school system, more recently they have asserted that they home school because of their religious beliefs. The father also recently opined that educating children outside the home exposes them to “snitches.”

of the people, the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement.”

“In obedience to the constitutional mandate to bring about a general diffusion of
knowledge and intelligence, the Legislature, over the years, enacted a series of laws.

A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good
citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare. [Citation.] The Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 [45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070, 39 A.L.R. 468], held that: ‘No question is raised concerning the power of the state reasonably to regulate all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils; to require that all children of proper age attend some school, that teachers shall be of good moral character and patriotic disposition, that certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship must be taught, and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the public welfare.’ [¶] Included in the laws governing the educational program were those regulating the attendance of children at school and the power of the state to enforce compulsory education of children within the state at some school is beyond question. (Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 [43 S.Ct. 625, 628, 67 L.Ed. 1042, 29 A.L.R. 1446]; Ex parte Liddell, 93 Cal. 633, 640 [29 P. 251].” (In re Shinn (1961)
195 Cal.App.2d 683, 686-687.)

Full-time public school education for persons between the ages of six and
eighteen is compulsory under California’s compulsory education law (Ed. Code,
6§ 48200 et seq.),2 “and each parent, guardian, or other person having control or charge of the pupil shall send the pupil to the public full-time day school . . . and for the full time designated as the length of the schoolday by the governing board of the school district” (§ 48200). Exemptions to compulsory public school education are made for, among others, children who (1) attend a private full-time day school (§ 48222) or (2) are instructed by a tutor who holds a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught (§ 48224). These provisions of the Education Code (in their predecessor section numbers) were held to be constitutional in People v. Turner (1953) 121 Cal.App.2d Supp. 861, 865 et seq., (“Turner”), and an appeal to the United States Supreme Court from that decision was dismissed for want of a substantial federal question in Turner v. People of the State of California (1954) 347 U.S. 972 [98 L.Ed. 1112, 74 S.Ct. 785]. Turner was cited with approval in In re Shinn, supra, 195 Cal.App.2d at p. 694
(“Shinn”).

In Shinn, children were found to be habitually truant and were made wards of the
juvenile court because their parents violated the compulsory education laws in effect at that time. The laws were former sections 12101, 12154, and 12155, which were predecessors to current sections 48200, 48222, and 48224, respectively. (Shinn, supra, 195 Cal.App.2d at pp. 687, 693-694.)

In Turner, the court affirmed a judgment of conviction of parents who refused to
send their children to public school and instead provided them with instruction that did. Unless otherwise indicated, all references herein to statutes are to the Education Code. not come within the exemptions to the compulsory public school education law. The appellant parents were convicted of violating former section 16601, a predecessor to current section 48200. Former sections 16624, and 16625 provided exemptions for children attending private full-time day school and children being educated by a person holding a valid teaching credential, but the parents did not make use of the exemptions.
(Turner, supra, 121 Cal.App.2d Supp. at pp. 863-864.)

The parents in Turner contended that former section 16601 was unconstitutional
because it deprived them of a right to determine how and where their children should be educated. Citing Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) 268 U.S. 510 [69 L.Ed. 1070, 45 S.Ct. 571], the Turner court stated the statute would be unconstitutional if it required parents to place their children in public schools and had no alternative means of education, but the court noted that former section 16601 permitted such alternative means and therefore was not unconstitutional. The court specifically rejected the argument that it is unconstitutional to require that parents possess the qualifications prescribed by statute if the parents seek to act as their children’s teachers, saying that nothing in the Pierce opinion declared or intimated such a finding of unconstitutionality. (Turner, supra, 121 Cal.App.2d Supp. at p. 865.)

The Turner court observed that there are “many cases dealing with statutes of
this character,” and specifically referred to State v. Hoyt (1929) 84 N.H. 38
[146 A. 170], where the Supreme Court of New Hampshire held constitutional a statute requiring children to be educated in either a public school or an approved private school, and rejected the argument that the federal guarantee of liberty permits parents to resist such state statutes by having their children educated in their own home by the parents themselves or a private tutor. (State v. Hoyt, supra, 146 A. at p. 171; Turner, supra, 121 Cal.App.2d Supp. at pp. 865-867.) The Turner court observed that the court in Hoyt stated it would be an unreasonable burden on the state to have to supervise each and every home in which a child was being educated. (Turner, at pp. 866-867.) The Turner court further observed it could find no cases in which a court has held that a state’s failure to permit home instruction as an alternative to public school education is unconstitutional. (Id. at p. 867.)

Turner also held that the subject former statutes were neither arbitrary nor
unreasonable when they required that teachers in private full-time day schools only be “persons capable of teaching” and did not have to hold a valid teaching credential for the grade being taught, but did require that a home tutor hold such a credential. The court observed that whereas it is unreasonably difficult and expensive for a state to supervise parents who instruct children in their homes, supervising teachers in organized private schools is less difficult and expensive. (Turner, supra, 121 Cal.App.2d Supp. at p. 867.) Moreover, it would not be unreasonable for the Legislature to conclude that teachers in private schools would be directly supervised by
the persons who run the schools, and such persons would have an interest in
maintaining the required standard of instruction by competent teachers so that the
schools would continue to qualify for the private full-time day school exemption. (Id. at
pp. 867-868.)

Additionally, the Turner court rejected, and noted that courts in other states had
also rejected, the notion that parents instructing their children at home come within the
private full-time day school exemption in then-section 16624 (now section 48222). The
court stated that a simple reading of the statutes governing private schools and home
instruction by private tutors shows the Legislature intended to distinguish the two, for if
a private school includes a parent or private tutor instructing a child at home, there
would be no purpose in writing separate legislation for private instruction at home.
(Turner, supra, 121 Cal.App.2d Supp. at p. 868; accord Shinn, supra, 195 Cal.App.2d at
p. 693.) Moreover, even if being taught at a parent’s home could be construed as
attendance at a private day school, the parents in Turner had not demonstrated that their
home already qualified as a private school under the requirements of the Education
Code. (Turner, at p. 869.)

Nor was the Turner court persuaded by the parents’ contention that the education
being provided to their children in their home was as good or better than the children
would have obtained in a public or private school or through a credentialed tutor, and
therefore the purpose of the statutes was satisfied. The court stated California’s
legislative scheme makes no such exemption to attendance in a public school. (Turner,
supra, 121 Cal.App.2d Supp. at p. 868-869; accord Shinn, supra, 195 Cal.App.2d, at
p. 694, where the court stated that “[h]ome education, regardless of its worth, is not the
legal equivalent of attendance in school in the absence of instruction by qualified
private tutors.”)

Turner was cited with approval in Board of Education v. Allen (1968) 392 U.S.
236 [20 L.Ed.2d 1060, 88 S.Ct. 1923] (“Allen”). There, the Supreme Court stated:
“Since Pierce [v. Society of Sisters was decided], a substantial body of case law has
confirmed the power of the States to insist that attendance at private schools, if it is to
satisfy state compulsory-attendance laws, be at institutions which provide minimum
hours of instruction, employ teachers of specified training, and cover prescribed
subjects of instruction. Indeed, the State’s interest in assuring that these standards are
being met has been considered a sufficient reason for refusing to accept instruction at
home as compliance with compulsory education statutes. These cases were a sensible
corollary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters: if the State must satisfy its interest in secular
education through the instrument of private schools, it has a proper interest in the
manner in which those schools perform their secular educational function.” (Id.,
392 U.S. at pp. 245-247, fns. omitted.) The Allen court cited Turner as a case in which
home instruction was rejected as a means of complying with a state’s compulsory
education laws. (Id. at p. 247, fn. 8.) Moreover, as noted above, the appeal to the
United States Supreme Court by the parents in Turner was dismissed for want of
a substantial federal question.

In the instant case, the parents’ citation to Cassady v. Signorelli (1996)
49 Cal.App.4th 55 provides them with no support for their assertion of a right to home
school their children with the mother providing the educational instruction. Cassady is
a family law case involving the question whether the trial court abused its discretion
when it ordered that a minor child must attend a public or private school rather than be
home schooled. Although the reviewing court stated that “a parent might normally have
the right to provide home schooling, private schooling, or government schooling to

The Legislature has not amended the substantive aspects of the compulsory
education statutes that were analyzed in Turner and Shinn. Like those courts, we find
no reason to strike down the Legislature’s evaluation of what constitutes an adequate
education scheme sufficient to promote the “general diffusion of knowledge and
intelligence,” which Article IX, section 1 of our Constitution states is “essential to the
preservation of the rights and liberties of the people.” We agree with the Shinn court’s
statement that “the educational program of the State of California was designed to
promote the general welfare of all the people and was not designed to accommodate the
personal ideas of any individual in the field of education.” (Shinn, supra,
195 Cal.App.2d at p. 697.)

2. Consequences of Parental Denial of a Legal Education

Because parents have a legal duty to see to their children’s schooling within the
provisions of these laws, parents who fail to do so may be subject to a criminal
complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines
or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program. (§§ 48291 &
48293.) Additionally, the parents are subject to being ordered to enroll their children in
an appropriate school or education program and provide proof of enrollment to the
court, and willful failure to comply with such an order may be punished by a fine for
civil contempt. (§ 48293.) a child,” the court did not address the requirements of the Education Code, nor the excellent treatment of California’s public compulsory education law found in Shinn and
Turner. The court simply ruled that based on the facts of the case, it was not an abuse
its discretion to order that the child not be home schooled.

Jurisdiction over such parental infractions may be assigned to juvenile court
judges. (§ 48295; Welf. & Inst. Code, § 601.4.) Further, under section 361,
subdivision (a) of the Welfare and Institutions Code, the juvenile court has authority to
limit a parent’s control over a dependent child, including a parent’s right to make
educational decisions for a child, so long as the limitations do not exceed what is
necessary to protect the child; and under section 362, subdivision (d) of that code, the
juvenile court may make reasonable orders directed at the parents to ensure that the
child regularly attends school. An order directing a child’s regular attendance at school
in compliance with the Education Code’s provisions for compulsory education is a
protection against the child being adjudged a habitual truant, while it also recognizes the
child’s rights under California’s compulsory public education law.

3. Analysis of the Education Issues in the Instant Case
The parents in this case assert that when the mother gives the children
educational instruction at home, the parents are acting within the law because mother
operates through Sunland Christian School where the children are “enrolled.”4
However, the parents have not demonstrated that mother has a teaching credential such
that the children can be said to be receiving an education from a credentialed tutor. It is
clear that the education of the children at their home, whatever the quality of that
4 In support of the parents’ home schooling, Terry Neven, Sunland Christian
School’s administrator, submitted a letter in which he stated the school is a private
school and the two younger children are enrolled there. The letter fails to mention that
the children do not actually receive education instruction at the school.
education, does not qualify for the private full-time day school or credentialed tutor
exemptions from compulsory education in a public full-time day school.
The parents are not aided by a letter from the Lynwood Unified School District
stating that Sunland Christian School “appeared to be a valid charter school.” Aside
from the fact that Sunland Christian School cannot be a charter school unless it is,
among other things, part of California’s public school system and nonsectarian,5 the
parents present no authority to the effect that a charter school can excuse the statutory
requirement that tutors be credentialed if their students are to come within the tutor
exemption to compulsory public school education.

Likewise, an affidavit of Sunland Christian School administrator Terry Neven
provides no authority for the parents’ home schooling. In the affidavit, Neven talks at
length about “independent study” programs, including his school’s independent study
program. He does not mention any Education Code section that provides for parents
teaching their children by “independent study” through private schools.
Section 51745 et seq. provides for independent study for students, through a school
district or a county office of education; however, its purpose is to provide students with
certain educational opportunities, such as education during travel, or individualized
5 Charter schools are part of, and are under the jurisdiction of, California’s public
school system. (§ 47615; Wilson v. State Bd. of Education (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 1125,
1137 et seq.) They must be nonsectarian in their programs and all other operations, they
cannot charge tuition, and they cannot be conversions from private schools. (§§ 47605,
subd. (d)(1) & 47602, subd. (b); Wilson, at p. 1131.) Their teachers must be
credentialed as teachers in other public schools would be required to be credentialed.
(§ 47605, subd. (l); Wilson, at p. 1137.) study in an area of interest or subject not currently available in the regular school curriculum. Clearly, section 51745 does not apply to mother’s home schooling of the
children.

Nor is there importance to Mr. Neven’s statement, in a letter to the Lynwood
Unified School District, that Sunland Christian School “has been evaluated by both
Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Office of Education
to be in compliance with state laws.”6 Such representation does not constitute
a statement that the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles County
Office of Education knowingly gave their stamp of approval to children being deprived
of an education in a public or private full-time day school setting, or by a credentialed
tutor, through the ruse of enrolling them in a private school and then letting them stay
home and be taught by a non-credentialed parent.

Although Mr. Neven reported to the Lynwood Unified School District that he
makes visits to the parents’ home about four times a year, and although some of the
children in the family reported to the Department of Children and Family Services
social worker that they were given tests at the end of some school years and they took
the tests at the Sunland Christian School, the fact remains that the children are taught at
home by a non-credentialed person. Moreover, the very language of section 48222 is an
implicit rejection of the parents’ position that having someone from Sunland Christian
6 Both the Lynwood and the Los Angeles school districts are mentioned in
Mr. Neven’s letter because the children live in one school district, and the Sunland
Christian School is in the other school district.

School monitor mother’s instruction of the children is sufficient. Section 48222
provides an exemption from compulsory public school education for “[c]hildren who
are being instructed in a private full-time day school.” (Italics added.) It is the
language of the statutes that constitutes California’s plan for education of its children.
Thus, under California’s compulsory public school education law, Mr. Neven’s
occasional observation of mother’s instruction of the children and their occasional
taking of tests at the private school is without legal significance.

Lastly, we address the parents’ claim that they home school their children
because of religious beliefs. We recognize that “a State’s interest in universal
education . . . is not totally free from a balancing process when it impinges on
fundamental rights and interests, such as those specifically protected by the Free
Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and the traditional interest of parents with
respect to the religious upbringing of their children so long as they . . . ‘prepare [them]
for additional obligations.’ ” (Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) 406 U.S. 205, 214 [32 L.Ed.2d
15, 92 S.Ct. 1526] (Yoder).) The parents cite Yoder as a basis for their contention that
their religious beliefs entitle them to refuse to send their children to school.
Yoder involved children whose parents’ religion (Amish) accepted education
given outside of the home for grades one through eight but mandated that children not
continue their education in a public or private school past the eighth grade. The Yoder
court rejected the notion that parents have a universal right to refuse to obey a state’s
compulsory education law. The court recognized that “allowing every person to make
his own standards on matters of conduct in which society as a whole has important
interests” is precluded by “the very concept of ordered liberty,” and thus, “if the Amish
asserted their claims because of their subjective evaluation and rejection of the
contemporary secular values accepted by the majority, . . . their claims would not rest
on a religious basis” but rather would be philosophical and personal. (Yoder, supra,
406 U.S. at pp. 215-216.) However, from the testimonial evidence of scholars on the
subjects of religion and education, the court found that the Amish traditional way of life
does not rest on personal preferences but rather on “deep religious conviction, shared by
an organized group, and intimately related to daily living” (id. at p. 216), and the Amish
religious beliefs and style of living are centuries old (id. at p. 217). “Old Order Amish
communities today are characterized by a fundamental belief that salvation requires life
in a church community separate and apart from the world and worldly influence. This
concept of life aloof from the world and its values is central to their faith.” (Id. at
p. 210.) Testimony showed that not only were the values taught in high schools
contrary to those of the Amish religion, but attendance at high school takes Amish
children away from their community during the period of their lives when they are to
acquire Amish attitudes and integrate into the Amish religious community. The Yoder
court observed that Amish children receive an informal vocational education in their
own communities after graduation from eighth grade that prepares them to be
productive members of the Amish community. (Id. at pp. 211-212, 222.) Moreover,
one of the witnesses testified that compulsory high school education for Amish children
would “ultimately result in the destruction of the Old Order Amish church community
as it exists in the United States today.” (Id. at p. 212.)

The parents in the instant case have asserted in a declaration that it is because of
their “sincerely held religious beliefs” that they home school their children and those
religious beliefs “are based on Biblical teachings and principles.” Even if the parents’
declaration had been signed under penalty of perjury, which it was not, those assertions
are not the quality of evidence that permits us to say that application of California’s
compulsory public school education law to them violates their First Amendment rights.
Their statements are conclusional, not factually specific. Moreover, such sparse
representations are too easily asserted by any parent who wishes to home school his or
her child.

4. Remand for Further Proceedings

Because the trial court in this case simply ruled that the parents have a constitutional right to home school their children, the court made no explicit factual findings concerning the parents’ compliance with California’s compulsory public education law. So that findings and legal conclusions can be made on the record by the trial court, we will remand the case for a hearing on the issue whether the parents have
been in compliance with that law.

The dependency court should exercise the authority, granted to it by Welfare and Institutions Code sections 361, subdivision (a), and 362, subdivision (d), to order the parents to comply with the Education Code. Upon remand, absent any legal ground for not doing so, the court must order the parents to (1) enroll their children in a public full-time day school, or a legally qualified private full-time day school and (2) see to it that the children receive their education in such school. Given the history of this family,
which we need not discuss here,7 permitting the parents to educate the children at home
by means of a credentialed tutor would likely pose too many difficulties for the tutor.
Further, the court should not permit the children to be enrolled in the Sunland Christian
School because that school was willing to participate in the deprivation of the children’s
right to a legal education.

DISPOSITION
The petition for extraordinary writ is granted. Let a writ of mandate issue
directing the respondent juvenile court to comply with the views expressed herein.

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
CROSKEY, J.
WE CONCUR:
KLEIN, P. J.
KITCHING, J.

7 On November 20, 2007, we filed a separate, unpublished opinion for this case
that decides consolidated appeals (Nos. B192601 and B195484) filed by the parents and
two of the minor children. Those appeals address matters other than the home
schooling issue and our opinion sets out a history of the family vis-à-vis the dependency
court.

A California court has ruled that several children in one homeschool family must be enrolled in a public school or “legally qualified” private school, and must attend, sending ripples of shock into the nation’s homeschooling advocates as the family reviews its options for appeal.

The ruling came in a case brought against Phillip and Mary Long over the education being provided to two of their eight children. They are considering an appeal to the state Supreme Court, because they have homeschooled all of their children, the oldest now 29, because of various anti-Christian influences in California’s public schools.

The decision from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles granted a special petition brought by lawyers appointed to represent the two youngest children after the family’s homeschooling was brought to the attention of child advocates.

A California appellate court ruled last week that a family’s religious convictions do not guarantee a right to homeschool their children.

“California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children,” wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey for California’s Second District Court of Appeal.

The parents, identified in court papers only by the last initial L, but identified by several news organizations as Phillip and Mary Long, told the court that their religious beliefs for homeschooling “are based on biblical teachings and principles.” But that’s not enough for an exemption from California education requirements, the court ruled February 28.

“Such sparse representations are too easily asserted by any parent who wishes to homeschool his or her child,” Croskey wrote.

The court ruled that minor children must attend a public school unless the child attends a private school or is taught by a teacher with a valid state teaching license.

“This case probably sends that kind of chilling message for people who are trying to homeschool legally,” said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center.

Mike Smith, president of the Virginia-based Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), estimates that 60,000 families who homeschool in California could be affected by the decision, because many parents do not have teachers’ licenses.

“Ten percent or less would be able to homeschool under this interpretation,” Smith said. “If a school district got hold of this opinion, they could attempt to drag a family into court.”

Families who homeschool their children in California are required to file a private school affidavit with state regulators or to enroll their children in alternate education programs such as private school satellite instruction or independent study.

Last week’s court ruling may tighten the requirement further. The court ruled that the state’s education law allowing for independent study “does not apply to mother’s home schooling of the children.” The children in the case had been enrolled in Sunland Christian School, an institution that coordinates independent study programs for homeschooling families.

Smith said California is the most restrictive state in the country for homeschooling families. He said the family was not a member of the HSLDA, but the organization hopes to appeal the case by arguing for the family’s constitutional rights to homeschool.

The case came to the attention of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services after one of the family’s eight children reported “physical and emotional mistreatment by the children’s father,” according to the opinion.

An attorney for Children and Family Services asked a juvenile court to order that the children be enrolled in a public or private school. The trial court refused, citing the parents’ right under the California Constitution to homeschool their children.

Despite its refusal to issue the order, the juvenile court gave the “opinion that the homeschooling the children were receiving was ‘lousy,’ ‘meager,’ and ‘bad,’” Croskey wrote. The lower court also said that homeschooling the children deprived them of ways to interact with people outside the family, that other people could provide help if something was “amiss” in the children’s lives, and that the children could develop emotionally in a broader world than the family’s “cloistered” setting.

Is homeschooling like the Amish, or peyote?

The juvenile court’s decision was an “error of law,” Croskey wrote in last week’s opinion.

The parents had argued that the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder — a case in which an Amish family was permitted to homeschool their children — granted religious freedom grounds for homeschooling.

But the Wisconsin v. Yoder decision wasn’t about personal beliefs, Croskey wrote. The Supreme Court “found that the Amish traditional way of life does not rest on personal preferences but rather on ‘deep religious conviction, shared by an organized group, and intimately related to daily living.’”

The parents in the California case weren’t the first to claim that the Yoder decision granted a broad religious exemption from mandatory schooling laws, said Haynes at the First Amendment Center. “But it just doesn’t seem to work. The Amish were treated in an exotic way.”

In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the free exercise clause in the Constitution’s First Amendment doesn’t allow individuals to break the law, so long as those laws don’t specifically target religious activity. In that case, Employment Division v. Smith, the court said the state of Oregon could fire employees for using the drug peyote even if it was used for religious purposes.

“Since this case, it has been much more difficult [to argue a case] under the free exercise clause,” Haynes said. “This case is a reminder that free exercise claims, religious freedom claims, are difficult to sustain in court.”

 Family troubles

Croskey’s decision suggested that the homeschooling family had specific issues that precluded options used by many other homeschooling parents in California. In sending the case back to the lower court, the appellate court placed restrictions on the family.

“Given the history of this family, which we need not discuss here, permitting the parents to educate the children at home by means of a credentialed tutor would likely pose too many difficulties for the tutor,” Croskey wrote. He also said the court should not permit the students to re-enroll in Sunland Christian School.

“That school was willing to participate in the deprivation of the children’s right to a legal education,” Croskey wrote.

Sunland Christian School posted a response on its website calling the appellate court’s ruling “a bad decision.”

“While this case could have negative implications for California homeschoolers, nothing has changed to your right to homeschool,” the school said. “There is no need to panic or make any changes to your current situation.”

The Pacific Justice Institute says it will represent Sunland Christian School in an appeal to the California Supreme Court.

“The scope of this decision by the appellate court is breathtaking,” said Pacific Justice Institute president Brad Dacus. “If not reversed, the parents of the more than 166,000 students currently receiving an education at home will be subject to criminal sanctions.”