Many truancy workers, police officers, and DSS workers that are suppose to know our laws, in order to protect us, do not. There are many laws in our country. There are local city and county ordinances; there are state regulations (which supersede both the city and county ordinances); and each of these govern their own geographical area. Still yet is the federal regulations, which supersedes all state regulations.

There are so many laws, made to govern the land and it's people. Every kind you can think of! If you think of something that is not governed by a law, let you local legislator know, and they will surely get one in place for you. There are so many types and levels of law that attorneys have to look up and review them, to prepare cases for court. Judges can take days to render a verdict in cases. After all the the evidence has been submitted, they then must review all the laws presented, all other known laws, and the weight the evidence on both sides of a case according to all laws (and previous court case precedent) to make a decision.

Don't let this intimidate you, your family and your rights!

Prepare yourself now, so that if you ever come in contact with an official who does not know the law, you will be able to protect yourself and your family's rights under the law.

All information provided is for informational purposes only, we are not responsible for information or opinions that are provided by other sites.

"Tong is not timid in pointing out that many well-meaning system professionals -- lawyers, judges, lawmakers, psychologists, social workers, therapists and medical doctors -- do not know that they do not know."

Quote 1
Our battles now are against misapplications of the law, against authorities who are prejudiced, and against social workers who take anonymous tips. These anonymous tips are often from family members and people who don't like homeschoolers. They call a child-abuse hotline, often fabricating a story about a homeschooling family. Next thing you know a social worker is at the door demanding entry and demanding to interrogate each of the children separately. We work to prevent this from happening.

We call it "The Battle for the Front Door."

Quote 2
As Christians, on the one hand, we are commanded to obey the governing authorities. On the other hand, we're told to give to people what they are due. If an official comes to my door and asks for something that is not his due, I have the right, perhaps even the duty, to tell him "no." If a police officer comes to my door and wants to interview my child and does not have a court order, generally he is not entitled to access to my child. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees every citizen protection from unwarranted government intrusions into their home. Parents must understand that issue clearly. Because the social worker or police offers is not entitled to what he is asking, we can scripturally, with total confidence, tell him "no."

To understand what is due, most parents need legal advice, because what is due is almost always a legal issue. Much of what I do is to figure out precisely what is due. It is my job to tell the family, "This is due, but this is not due. I advise you to give what is due like the Scripture commands. But other than that, retain the integrity of your home, because the home should be the safest place a child knows—without being subject to the invasion of strangers. Parents have a duty to keep that home safe.

Quote 1
...announced she was investigating a report that the children were not fed properly and there was no food in the house. She asked to come into the house.

Quote 2
On our advice, the mother and her family went into their kitchen, began bringing out armloads of food, and laid them on the front porch. Before the pile had gotten very large, the social worker conceded that there was adequate food in the house and she left.

Quote 3
A home that most people would consider to be in a normal condition of order and tidiness might appear to a social worker as a home full of hidden dangers, threats, and insinuations of abuse or neglect. The social worker enters your home not as a friend, but as a law enforcement official looking for violations or grounds to suspect a violation.

Quote 1
Home School Legal Defense Association defended home school families' right to privacy in Oklahoma this month when the Alva Independent School District (ISD) attempted to create a list of local home schooling families.

Quote 2
Oklahoma law does not require home schoolers to notify the local school district that their children are being home schooled, much less require the department of education to compel school districts to collect a list of home schoolers.

Quote 1
On July 31, the Mannford Eagle printed an article that included the following shocking statement:
Parents must contact the school if they choose to educate their children at home. There is a homeschool form that must be signed by parents that states they are taking responsibility for their child's schooling.

Quote 2
The court held that neither social workers nor police officers can coerce their way into a home unless they have either a warrant or probable cause that there is an emergency situation. Anonymous tips like the one here simply do not qualify.

Quote 3
The decision said, “The government’s interest in the welfare of children embraces not only protecting children from physical abuse, but also protecting children’s interest in the privacy and dignity of their homes and the lawfully exercised authority of their parents.”

Quote 1
Chief Judge Emeritus Lawrence K. Karlton (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California) ruled yesterday that social workers who enter a family home to investigate alleged child abuse without a warrant or proper evidence of an emergency violate the constitutional rights of the family.

Quote 2
The judge held that “absent consent, either a warrant or exigent circumstances was necessary for a police officer and a social worker to secure entrance to the Calbretta’s home.”

Michael Farris, president of Home School Legal Defense Association, who is lead council for the Calabrettas said, “thousands of families every month are told that they must let social workers and police officers into their homes to conduct child abuse investigations. Invariably, they are told that the law does not require either warrants or true emergencies. This ruling makes it clear that these claims are wrong. The Fourth Amendment applies just as much to child abuse investigations as it does to any other government search and seizure.”

Quote 3
Farris pointed out that of the over two million reported cases of abuse or neglect each year, 60% are ruled “unfounded” by the child abuse authorities themselves. “In these cases,” Farris said, “children are subjected to frightening investigations and often are strip-searched. Such investigations do far more harm than good for children.”

Quote 2
Specifically addressing the abuses of the child welfare system that result from anonymous tipsters, Klicka noted that current child welfare laws allow people to anonymously phone in allegations of abuse and neglect and that many states have no guidelines in place for the prevention of false reports. Once an investigation begins, parents are considered guilty until proven innocent. Even beyond wasting taxpayers' money, anonymous tips subject innocent families to the embarrassment and terror of an investigation by Child Protective Services.

Quote 1
New protections for innocent families facing investigations by social workers are soon to become law. At the end of March, both the House and Senate passed H.R. 14 and S. 342, the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act.

Quote 2
the U.S. Senate report language states:

The committee has also included a requirement for training of CPS workers on their legal responsibilities in order to protect the constitutional and statutory rights of children and families under investigation…

[T]he committee believes it is important for child protective services personnel to understand and respect fourth amendment limitations on their right to enter a home when investigating an allegation without a court order…

The committee firmly believes that individuals being investigated for alleged child maltreatment should be informed of the specific allegations made against them…The committee recognizes that it is a basic right for all citizens to be informed of what crime they are being accused of at the time they are being asked for an interview or entry into their home.

Quote 3 Mr. Christopher Klicka of the Home School Legal Defense Association described numerous cases of innocent families being aggressively investigated on allegations of child abuse and neglect only to have such cases later determined to be unsubstantiated or false.

Quote 1
Shirley Calabretta said no the first time the stranger asked to enter her home. Ten days later, the stranger was back, with a police officer. Calabretta was sufficiently intimidated to do what they asked.

Now she knows that constitutional protections still apply, even to a mother anonymously accused of a horrible crime.

Quote 2
Second, the social worker’s biases shaped her investigation. The Calabretta family is deeply religious. The children also are home-schooled. Both ways of life—although practiced by many families with well-nurtured children—raised red flags in the investigator’s mind.

Quote 3
No doubt some truly abusive people escaped detection. But thousands of innocent parents and their children suffered the trauma of a false allegation.

Quote 1
The team found that home school laws "allow persons who maltreat children to maintain social isolation in order for the abuse and neglect to remain undetected" and called for a task force to look into the issue. But there is no logical connection between the practice of home schooling, which is the chosen means of education by the parents of more than 2 million students nationally, and child abuse.

Parents who home school almost always do so out of a great regard for their children's future and a heartfelt belief that they can make a difference by more personally directing their education. Many parents come to this decision due to real concerns about their children's well-being, whether emotional, intellectual, physical or all three, in the public school system.

Where in that is a recipe for abuse?

Quote 2
So why target home schooling this way? If there's no real link to child abuse, what is it about home schooling that causes certain establishment entities concern?

There are two main threats that home schooling provides to certain interested parties in the current context.

Quote 1
Social workers are bound to obey the U.S. Constitution when investigating child abuse cases, said a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an opinion handed down Thursday, August 26, 1999.

“This opinion will have a nationwide impact. With respect to the Fourth Amendment, the Ninth Circuit settled the social worker question once and for all. No longer can social workers enter a home without either a warrant or probable cause of an emergency,” said Michael Farris, lead attorney for the plaintiffs. “Child Protective Services agencies have too many times behaved as if there is a social worker exception to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions against illegal searches and seizures,” Farris explained, but there is no such exception, according to the Ninth Circuit ruling in Calabretta v. Floyd, et al.

Quote 1
In a long awaited decision the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled 7-0 against the Department of Child Protective Services declaring that the department did not have a legitimate basis to even begin an investigation of the Stumbo family.

Quote 2
According to HSLDA President Mike Smith, the Stumbo case is important because the court found that social workers have an obligation to examine the reports they receive alleging abuse or neglect to make sure is rises to the level of neglect or abuse as defined by statue before initiating an investigation. "Not every report must be investigated and every report should be carefully scrutinized by social workers so citizens will not be unjustifiably traumatized because of a trivial or false allegation," said Mr. Smith.

Quote 1
Two back-to-back stories in the Akron Beacon Journal suggest that homeschooling is a threat to children.

Quote 2
Homeschoolers are often subject to relentless investigations over the most minor reports. (One family, in North Carolina, has been in court for three years because their two-year-old daughter was alleged to have run outside without any clothes on.) But instead of calling for reform of the unreliable child protection system, the Beacon Journal has called for a new scrutiny of homeschoolers.

Quote 1
In recent years it has become frighteningly common for homeschoolers to be wrongfully accused of abuse and neglect on hotlines to state child welfare departments. Individuals who do not like home schoolers can simply make an anonymous phone call and fabricate abuse stories about their neighbors. Social workers then have a legal obligation to investigate. Some statistics show that up to 60 percent of children removed from their homes by social workers were taken away from their parents without probable cause of abuse. Over 70 percent of investigations are not substantiated.1 Under this system, which ignores due process of law, many innocent families are subjected to harassment.

Quote 1
Hospital officials immediately filed an allegation of abuse, since this kind of injury is sometimes caused on purpose. The parents called Home School Legal Defense Association from the emergency room, where attorney Scott Somerville took over.

Quote 1
The Department of Social Services (DSS) received a report that the daughter of a Home School Legal Defense Association member family in Newberry County was below grade level in her academic achievement. DSS contacted the family and asked them to demonstrate from their records that their child was receiving instruction at a grade level commensurate with her age.

HSLDA advised the social worker that the family was conducting a home school program under the auspices of an association for home schools having at least 50 members in accordance with § 59-65-47 of the Code of Laws of South Carolina. This statute does not prescribe any particular standards for academic achievement which home school students are required to attain. Parents are required to teach certain basic instructional areas for at least 180 days during the school year and are required to maintain educational records of the instruction and the student’s progress. However, parents are free to determine the grade placement of their children based upon academic performance.

After receiving this information from HSLDA and verifying the family’s membership in the home school association, DSS made no further inquiries of the family’s educational program. — Dewitt T. Black

Sidenote:
How dare the system judge us, we are only trying to correct the problems they have created.

They have failed to educate our children!

Many high school children are being removed and homeschooled because they can't read, write, or do arithmetic beyond elementary grade level requirements.

If a parent could only homeschool a child at a grade level commensurate with their age, how would these students get the remedial teaching necessary for them to learn reading, writing and arithmetic at a high school level?

Will DSS start holding all public school teachers and officials responsible for passing children whom can't read, write, or do arithmetic beyond elementary or middle school grade level requirements?

If so, there will be a lot of teachers and officials on the central registry.

Quote 1
[5] Do not invite Department of Social Services personnel into your home. If they have gained entrance before you learn why they are there, order them to leave. If they do not leave, call the police and request that they be forcibly removed for trespassing. Follow up on that charge with your attorney.

Quote 2
[6] If they announce that they wish to take a child or children from your home, again demand their court order. If they do not have one, they will have to defer to the police to remove the children pursuant to the emergency protective custody procedures. If the police are in attendance, and they announce their intent to conduct such an emergency removal, note the date and time of day of the removal, along with the parties' names and other identifying characteristics, then contact your lawyer immediately.

Quote 3
[7] Demand the credentials of anyone who purports to be a Department of Social Services worker. Also, ask for identification from any police officers present. The police are issued ID cards with a picture and badge number, usually signed by the chief of police or sheriff.

Quote 1
We are VOCAL: a group of parents, children and others, who are family advocates. Our purpose is to see that children and their families are protected from all forms of abuse. VOCAL is a network of local and state organizations serving as nonprofit family advocacy agencies that provide emotional support and education.

Quote 2
VOCAL is for those who are falsely accused of abuse or neglect. False accusations result in innocent children being torn from their families, subjected to needless foster care, lengthy interrogations, intrusive physical examinations and unnecessary therapy due to misdiagnosis. This is bureaucratic child abuse. Abuse is abuse regardless of the source.

Statistics show that 60 to 80% of ALL accusations of child abuse are unfounded. This high rate of false accusations devastates innocent families and it diverts the efforts of those professionals involved in real abuse cases, reducing the care and help available to children who really need it. VOCAL strongly supports just and reasonable child abuse laws; however, VOCAL is opposed to social workers, attorneys, law enforcement officers and self-appointed "child advocates" who exceed their power, disregard the goals and intent of the laws, and thereby end up subjecting children to abuse.

Quote 3
START A PAPER TRAIL Every time you talk to Social Services, document what was said and write a letter to that person asking them to confirm or deny the contents of the letter within 10 calendar days. In your letter state that "failure to confirm or deny the contents of the letter will constitute an agreement that the information contained therein is accurate". Send the letter by certified mail or Return Receipt Requested. Faxes can sent as long as you have verification that the fax was sent and received. Make sure that you cc: copies of all these letters to your attorney. Advise your attorney (in writing) to send copies of the letter to County Counsel, other attorney's involved in the case and to the judge IF your attorney feels that it is appropriate and that it might be to your advantage.

The system is imperfect, and occasionally an innocent person is accused on bad medical evidence. Once the initial error is made, it is very hard to stop the process.

Quote 1
"There's a complex network of social workers, mental health professionals, and law enforcement officials that actually encourages charges of child abuse--whether they're reasonable or not," says Dr. Richard A. Gardner, a clinical professor of child psychiatry at Columbia University.

Quote 2
But whether a false allegation of abuse is made maliciously, or out of genuine concern for the welfare of a child, the result is the same for the accused. Unlike the usual "innocent until proven guilty" thing you hear about on Perry Mason, when it comes to child abuse, the accused is guilty until he proves himself innocent. "And that's not easy," says attorney Peter Firpo of Walnut Creek, California.

Quote 3
Child abuse is a terrible crime, and those who abuse children should be severely punished. But in the our zeal to pursue offenders, we have inadvertently created a system that itself abuses the very children we're trying so hard to protect.

Quote 1
This naiveté has no contact with reality. It doesn't confront the many state child protection caseworkers that in reality are poorly trained, if trained at all and who often have an agenda that isn't open and above board. Most people don't think police officers or social workers will lie as much as they do in these cases.

Quote 2
As we said before, the advice to do nothing, or to "wait and see" is very common in the legal profession. It's very bad legal advice!

Quote 3
And the only way to prevent being re-infected with the false allegation virus a second or third time is to destroy the virus in the first place.

Quote 1
We are a non-profit organization dedicated to educating professionals and the falsely accused on factual, scientific data regarding child abuse allegations. To that end, we host one of the largest conferences on the topic of false child abuse allegations every 12 - 24 months.

Quote 2
For those who investigate, substantiate and prosecute claims of child abuse, we can provide resources to aid in objective assessment and conclusions that effectively distinguish genuine abuse victims from children that intentionally or mistakenly make or are coerced to make false allegations.

Quote 1
Get three tape recorders, keep them in fresh batteries, and feed them good tapes. Keep one by the door. Have another in your car. Keep one at the phone. Record ANY and ALL contact with Children's Services and Law Enforcement in their entirety! (Check your state's taping laws here - http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states.html). Many caseworkers and police like to bully people. Most routinely lie under oath (all for the greater glory, of course). Throw them off-balance by recording their every word.

Quote 1
Police are trained to appear kind and understanding, when in fact they are seeking probable cause to "cuff and stuff". If there is anything - anything - about the situation that might be construed, twisted, or misinterpreted as to be illegal - do what your attorney tells you, when you have your initial consultation with him/her (you have selected an attorney, haven't you?): keep your mouth shut! If you can, ask the officer to leave. If they refuse, consider calling 911.

~ About CHASE SC... ~ The Law ~ Explanation of the Third Option Law, 59-65-47 ~

~ CHASE SC Lifetime Membership Application ~ CHASE SC Yearly Compliance & Update Form ~

~ SC Support Groups ~ SC Accountability Associations ~ Q & A About CHASE SC ~

~ Free Forms For Home Schools ~

CHASE SC gives permission to all homeschooling support groups and individual homeschoolers (for personal use with homeschooling records only) to copy any CHASE SC information in its entirety if 1) copies are not sold at a profit (a reasonable charge for copying is acceptable), and 2) if you note on all copies that you 'Reprinted with the permission of CHASE SC, PO Box 58, Ruffin, SC 29475, Email address: CHASESC@chasesc.com, Web Site: http://www.chasesc.com.' All rights are retained by CHASE SC for CHASE SC documents, information, and forms available throughout the CHASE SC web site.

All others may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information obtained from this site without the explicit written permission of CHASE SC! You may not send, or cause to be sent, any part or anything posted on this site without the explicit written permission of CHASE SC!