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| Handicapped Children Rights |  Since 1983, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has worked to win and protect all parents' rights to teach all their children at home, including special needs children. Now it is legal in all 50 states. But special needs children may still face with regular legal challenges, even though homeschooled special needs children are being taught well by their parents and it is legal.
Unfortunately, when dealing with handicapped children who are being homeschooled, some public school authorities, seem to have adopted the tactics of the Amalekites. When they find it hard to pick on homeschoolers with average or above average students, they turn to bothering the handicapped or special needs homeschool children. Since it is harder for the family to demonstrate educational progress, going after handicapped children that are homeschooled is somewhat easier. It is also easier to browbeat the families into thinking they are not qualified. Of course, the motive is larger also, since special needs children are worth nearly twice as much in state and federal tax dollars that will be sent to the local school district.
As a result, homeschool families having children with special needs or handicaps are often bothered and restricted more than other homeschool families. In the case of such discriminatory treatment, many homeschoolers with special needs children start to think they have less parental rights than everyone else. This could not be further from the truth, constitutionally. Parents with special needs children are protected by the same Constitution as all other parents. Consequently, they too are protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
For instance, one Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) homeschool family in Colorado had their child in special needs classes in the public school. After some time, their child became basically stagnant, becouse the classroom atmosphere was insufferable. They made up their mind that they could do a better job themselves so they informed the school district that they were going to homeschool. The local school district would not disenroll the child, although it was legal to homeschool in the state. The district felt a mere mother could not fulfill the child's Individual Education Plan (IEP) recommendation. The district called the family weekly, and tried to persuade to come back in for more meetings with the public school's specialists. The mother could hardly stand the frightening and started to doubt herself. In the end the school district was convinced to retreat and recognize her right to homeschool privately.
In Illinois, a family disenrolled their child from all special needs programs except speech therapy. And again the school district tried to persuade the family to come into various meetings and conferences in which the child would be reckoned up and advice given. The school district felt that the parents were not qualified. In the end, the school district started a due process proceeding, pursuant to the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" or "IDEA," since they felt the family was still under the jurisdiction of that act because the child was still getting speech therapy. The family withdrew their child from speech therapy and presented a written statement to the school district breaking all ties. Finally, the family was left alone after further negotiations with the school district. In Indiana, school officials bothered regularly a couple who homeschooled nine adopted handicapped children. A lot of other families were homeschooling in the area, but this family was selected because all the children had special needs. The school district was spending a lot of money.
In every example, the situations were decided by HSLDA attorneys, and in every example, the parents were able to do a better job because they cared about their children and best understood their special needs.
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