Two bills introduced into the Oklahoma Senate Monday have upset some members of the home-schooling community.

S.B. 308 would allow police officers and truancy officials to interview and temporarily detain children not in school. S.B. 472 would require parents and guardians whose children are home-schooled to notify their local public school officials about academic progress.

Legislative restrictions are not necessary, said Corinne Whitefield, accounting senior, who was homeschooled until college. She said her three younger siblings also have been home-schooled.

“I think we have a huge problem in Oklahoma of people avoiding educating their children by saying they are being home-schooled,” said Sen. Jim Wilson, D-Tahlequah, the author of S.B. 308.

Wilson said his bill is not an attack on those who home school their children.

“I don’t care about the curriculum,” Wilson said. “I care about the kids not getting an education. What we’re talking about is people too lazy to teach their kids.”

Under the current Oklahoma laws, it is easy for a person to claim they are home schooling their children when they are not, Wilson said.

“If they say they are homeschooling to a judge, he can throw the case out of court right then,” he said. “This bill would make it more difficult for that to happen.”

Oklahoma legislation

Oklahoma is the only state that has constitutional provisions regarding home schooling, the Home Schooling Legal Defense Association’s Web site states. Because of this provision, Oklahoma has very few regulations regarding home schooling, the Web site states.

The Constitution of Oklahoma states the legislature will provide “compulsory attendance at some public or other school, unless other means of education are provided of all children in the State who are sound in mind and body, between the ages of 8 and 16, for at least three months each year.”

“Other means of education” has been interpreted by Oklahoma legislators to mean home schooling.

Court cases like Snyder v. Asbery and School Board District No. 18 v. Thompson have strengthened home schooling rights.

The Oklahoma Court of Appeals ruled in Snyder v. Asbery “the State Department of Education has no jurisdiction in home schooling.”

In School Board District No. 18 v. Thompson the court ruled, “in this empire, parents rule supreme during the minority of their children. They may...withdraw them entirely from public schools and send them to private schools, or provide for them other means of education.”

If S.B. 308 and S.B. 472 pass, the precedents these cases established could all change.

Social stigma

The public tends to think home-schooled children are behind academically or have trouble socializing, said Rachel Folmar, linguistics senior.

“There’s a lot of myths out there about it,” Folmar said.

Katie Pierce, public relations senior, said socilaization of home-schooled children seems to be at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

“When you’re home-schooled and you tell someone, the first question they ask is how do you socialize,” said Pierce, who attended public school until the sixth grade when her parents became unhappy with the school system, she said.

“I completely disagree with home-schooled kids being academically behind,” Whitefield said. “I don’t want to say we’re smarter than people who went to public or private schools, but we have a huge advantage because of the individual attention we receive from the people who taught us. It completely depends on the parents.”

Home schooling proponents say parents also can offer unique support that students might not find in public schools.

Ben Pierce, business administration junior, said in an e-mail he benefited from home schooling because he has attention deficit disorder and is dyslexic.

“It is in fact the American parents’ right and responsibility to see that their child is provided with a quality education, and if they believe the U.S. government cannot provide that, it is then their right to look elsewhere for that education,” he said.

Folmar said there are some families that do not provide the best schooling, but poor education can be found in public schools, too.

“To me, it’s abuse to not provide a child an education,” Wilson said.