All resident children in the United States fall under something known as the Compulsory Attendance laws, which basically mean that all children who fall into a certain age range are required to show attendance in some type of approved educational system.
Each state varies with what the age requirements for compulsory attendance are, but the youngest age by state is 5 and the oldest is 18. In my state, Texas, that compulsory attendance law requires attendance in school between the ages of 5-18. However, there is a clause that allows a child to drop out of school without it being criminal at the age of 16, but that child cannot obtain a state issued driver’s license until their 18th birthday if they are not in school.
There are certain exceptions to compulsory attendance in many states, such as: severe or life threatening illness to the child, a parent opting for a qualified private school, and then there are other exceptions that vary by state.
I’m not an advocate for compulsory attendance at all age groups. I realize this is an unpopular stance to take where education is concerned, but let me explain in this article just one of my many reasons for not being an advocate for compulsory attendance laws.
This year, my son was in public school, 7th grade. Today, I home school him.
He has struggled in school ever since about fourth grade, when he ran into a teacher whose personality and his clashed. They were locked in a power struggle that my son, the child, was bound to always lose, but in the end, he lost even more – a quality education – because the teacher did not like his personality.
Prior to this fourth grade year, all of my son’s teachers had said about the same thing about him: sweet, loving, charming, but doesn’t work to capacity. Yet he had mostly As on is report cards. He WAS a sweet, happy, funny, bit of a cut up kid, who was a tad lazy and didn’t work to his potential.
Then fourth grade hit, a new school was required because we had moved, and the socialization and what I will only deem as brainwashing, finally hit with it.
Let’s start with this: My son has ADHD – with severe impulsivity, some obsessive compulsive tendencies, and though he is young, there is speculation that he has bi-polar, or manic-depressive disorder. It does run in his family on his father’s side, and second level relatives on his dad’s side as well as his father himself have been hospitalized for psychiatric disorders.
So when the school gets wind of this, and even though there had never been a single instance of a problem with my son before this knowledge, suddenly, my son is labeled and treated accordingly.
He has a problem; then he is a problem – and that’s when the school became a problem with me. The thing is, before this label, my son was never considered a problem at all, with the only complaint he ever received being that he did not work to capacity and on rare occasion, he would not sit still.
Suddenly, the school is now scrambling to DO something with my son. What I want to know is, what was wrong with continuing to do what had previously been working? A kid gets a label, and suddenly, everything must change.
Without the support of his fourth grade teacher, my son soon began to have difficulty with interacting with the other children. If you think a teacher’s attitude toward a child doesn’t affect how the other children respond to that child, think again!
Thus began the battle of mom against the school district.
I fought a valiant fight, I swear I did. By fifth grade, I was on the phone with the school nearly every day, up at the school at least a couple of times per week, actively involved, completely up in their faces, but in a calm and professional way.
My message was clear: You will not get rid of me until you fix the problem.
That’s when things only became worse – after being tormented, teased and called names daily all through the fifth grade, the school refusing to evaluate him for Section 504 accommodations that might have given him some help with all of this (a future article about Section 504 and Special Education coming soon), it became even worse.
My son was tortured daily – called names such as: p*ss*, c*nt, sh*tl*ck*er, and much, much worse. As you can see, these words are so horrendous I cannot even put them in this article. My son, then 10 and 11 years old, didn’t even know what some of these words meant!
Then the threats from the other students started – the taunting and teasing him because the teachers didn’t like him, the threats to beat him up, threatening to kill him on his way home from school (he walked the four blocks from school to the house), and then, one day, it happened.
My son came home from school, was very sad all night, and wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. When he lay on the floor that evening to watch television, he said, “Ouch.”
I asked, “What’s wrong?”
He responded that his back hurt. I asked him to let me look at it, and all up and down his back were bruises and scratches. I turned him to the side and there was more bruising on his flank sides of his abdomen, and then scratches on his elbow. I made him tell me what happened, and he did, and I then looked at the back of his legs to see what looked like rope burns and deep scratches on the backs of his knees.
I was available by my work phone and cell phone all day the day this happened, and believe me, when my son did something wrong in their eyes, they had never had a problem reaching me before. The school had not contacted me about this. Not only did the school not contact me, but he did not receive any medical attention. Bruising to the sides can be deadly if not treated, and no one even looked at him. I took my son to the emergency room, where he was treated. We photographed the bruises and scratches, in case we needed them.
Giving the benefit of doubt to the school, I allowed them to tell me their version of what had taken place before I said anything. This was when I discovered that the boy who had beaten my son so badly he required medical attention had received three days lunch/recess detention – the same exact punishment my son had received for pretending to kiss a girl on the cheek by placing his hand on her cheek and kissing his own hand.
My son had been forcibly pulled off the monkey bars, thrown on the ground, where he was held down by one boy (who received no punishment) while another repeatedly kicked him, before they grabbed him by his hair and shirt and pulled him across the ground, resulting in scratches on his back.
I removed my son from this school until they could do something about this issue. The boy who assaulted him was suspended for three days, required to apologize, and when he returned to school, was put in isolation for a week.
I probably would have protested this, had it not been for the fact that I met the boy’s father, and something instinctive inside of me said this man would definitely be taking care of the situation.
Total time out of school for my son because of this: three days.
Later, when my son had returned to school and things were going acceptably well, I received a phone call from my son, who was crying and asking me to come and get him. He was being suspended.
What?
Did the principal call me? No, they had my son call me.
When I arrived at the school, I found my son in the nurse’s office with an ice pack on his neck. The first thing I noticed were the red marks across his face. Then, upon looking at my son, I found bruising and scratches on his neck.
My first thought was that my son had managed to fight back and was being suspended for fighting. Boy, was I wrong.
You see, my son was told by his teacher since he and this other boy in his class did not get along, that he was supposed to stay at least five people away from this boy in line during lunch or he’d get in trouble. Well, one little girl left the line, making my son now only four people away from the boy he was to stay five people away from. So my son moved back a space in line. When he did, the boy behind him shoved him out of line completely and knocked him down on the floor.
My son managed to pick himself up and tried to get back in line where he had been, and the same boy grabbed him by the neck, dug his fingernails into his neck, put him in a headlock and rammed my son’s head into the wall before letting go and letting him fall on the floor.
My son stood up and yelled at the boy, “You don’t ever touch me again!”
And the coach on duty heard that, and grabbed my son by the shirt and led him to the office. My son tried to explain what had happened, and two other students witnessed this, but the coach would not listen to him and told him, and I do quote, “Get your butt in the office now!”
My son, in his frustration, kicked the soda machine on the way to the office. Coach saw this, and thus, my son was being suspended.
Quite frankly, I am one of the most patient people you will ever meet in person, and I have to say, under the circumstance, I myself probably would have done a lot more than kick a soda machine.
This was the second time I pulled my son out of school, and this time, I called the Texas Education Agency for advice, who referred me to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights – where I filed complaints with BOTH agencies against the school for this and other special education issues I have not gone into here.
Investigation began, but the result was that my son was out of school until I felt I could safely return him. Time out of school this time: two weeks.
Then, my son began to become depressed, despondent really, not participating in family activities, crying easily over little things, lethargic, and just not the same little boy I had grown to love so much. I knew I was losing him.
Finally, the last straw with this particular school was when my son’s life was threatened. Another little boy in his class had told my son, “You best watch your ass, because I’m going to follow you home one day, and kick your ass once we get away from the school.”
My son refused to walk home, and then one morning, refused to go to school, tears streaming down his face, begging me not to make him go.
When I contacted the school to ask what could be done to protect my son, I was informed that the school was only responsible for my son’s safety while he was on school property or within 200 feet of the school’s property, and that since no adult had heard the threat, there was nothing they could do.
That’s when I pulled him out of this school permanently, without knowing what I was going to do, but knowing full well I would never make him go back to a place that terrified him so.
Prior to this, his total unexcused absences at 13 days, total absences at 16 days (he had been ill with strep throat for three days earlier that year), and that meant I was now well in violation of the district’s compulsory attendance laws.
The battle ensued, but unfortunately, that story will be left for another article, coming soon, where I will explain what happened my son’s sixth and seventh grade years, that finally, against my original judgment, caused me to research home schooling and pull my son out of this school district for good.
To sum up this segment of my story: there comes a time and place where compulsory attendance is not practical. Zero Tolerance demands that sanctions be taken against the offending student and parent, regardless of circumstances, and those sanctions include: fines, tickets/citations, attending hearings in front of judges, threats to report to Child Protective Services, actually reporting to Child Protective Services, mandatory parental education classes, and even jail and loss of custody of the child.
My question for you all to consider at this point before my next article is this:
What would you, as a parent, do if you were faced with the decision of possibly going to jail, being fined, or having to go before a judge with criminal charges pending against you when all you were trying to do was protect your child from harm?
What would you, as a parent, do if you were faced with a child who was traumatized and fearful to return to school, literally afraid for his safety and life, but you are being told you had no choice but to return him to this unsafe and traumatizing environment, or else you will go to jail, lose custody of your child to someone else, who will then take him to that unsafe situation while you are powerless to stop it?
This was the position the school district in my town left me in – and in the coming days, I will be sharing more of my son’s story with you all, including the legal battle with the district, and where we currently stand.
Yes, even though I now home school my child, the battle with the district is far from over. I hope you will keep reading.
Your comments are most welcome.
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