‘They’re trying to hold onto these students…’
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) America’s largest organization dedicated to defending homeschool families said some public schools are preventing parents from withdrawing their children, Fox News reported.
T.J. Schmidt, a lawyer for the Home School Legal Defense Association, said parents are pulling their children from public schools in higher numbers due to the coronavirus, but public schools are creating difficulties for these parents.
“We see this across the country,” Schmidt said. “I’ve had school officials attempt to prevent or dissuade parents from pulling their kids out.”
RealClear Opinion Research surveyed Americans and found that 40 percent of families were more likely to homeschool their children or enroll them in virtual education following the coronavirus.
Schools throughout the country have considered implementing coronavirus mitigation strategies, despite all available evidence indicating that COVID-19 is far less deadly to children than the seasonal flu.
Public schools don’t want to lose students and the funding that accompanies them, Schmidt said.
Schmidt said there were two main reasons for the slow withdrawal process.
“School officials are fearful of losing too many students to homeschooling, and the second reason is perhaps a staffing issue, just a lacking staffing issue to process these withdrawals,” he said.
“Not always an issue of trying to stop parents from homeschooling but there is a significant part of that involved,” he continued.
Schmidt, who homeschools his seven children, said he and his colleagues at HSLDA have worked on complaints in Oregon, Oklahoma, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, California and Florida.
“The most egregious situations I’ve had have been in Florida,” he said. “But I’ve had numerous parents in a couple of different counties told ‘we’re not allowed to withdraw students right now.’ They’re trying to hold onto these students.”
Public school advocates sent a letter to Joe Biden in which they said the coronavirus has put public education, which is already failing in many areas, at greater risk.
“It is no exaggeration to say that the future of public education itself is at stake,” they wrote, according to Fox News.
That is not to say that the former vice president and current Democrat presidential hopeful is likely to make the situation better.
Biden’s brother, Frank, is known to have been deeply involved in a scam to defraud Florida public education system, according to conservative journalist Peter Schweizer in his Profiles in Corruption.
By investing in companies that use federal grants to purchase real-estate and develop the facilities for charter schools, he and his business partners can overcharge the government for renting the facilities, regardless of whether the schools are successful.
Frank Biden previously has used his brother’s name as a way of selling localities in the Sunshine State on the investment with assurances that he would be held accountable if the schools failed.