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Opinion: Sandy Hook Commission home school proposal – don’t fix what isn’t broken

November 16, 2014
–
Mark Chapman

Camden Archambeau is a 13-year-old student writer and thinker in Sarah Darer Littman’s essay class at the Writopia Lab.

In the wake of the shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 26 people were killed by Adam Lanza, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy formed a commission to review and reform policy regarding public safety, especially on school safety, gun violence, and mental health.

The Sandy Hook Advisory Commission’s recent draft proposal on mental health includes the evaluation of home schooled children with “significant emotional, social or behavioral problems,” and the creation of Individual Education Plans (IEP) for home schooled students that fall under this category.

When parents remove their kids from the school system, people often think it is because their kids are “different” or socially challenged. This stereotype was exacerbated by the Sandy Hook tragedy. Adam Lanza was indeed homes chooled and clearly had significant emotional problems, but does this one instance call for additional regulation?

See the complete story at CT News Junkie.

 

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3 responses to “Opinion: Sandy Hook Commission home school proposal – don’t fix what isn’t broken”

  1. srb1228

    The author of the article misses the caveat in the proposal, it doesn’t say all homeschoolers should be evaluated just those that evincing social and behavioral issues. There should be some oversight of homeschool programs, the State has an obligation to look out for the best interests of a child with substantial deference to parents. I’ve known parents who’ve taken their kids out of school because they are uncomfortable with having their child diagnosed with a form of autism. That doesn’t mean that all, most or many homeschoolers are suspect but there surely are some.

  2. Casey Smith

    It’s important to remember that Adam Lanza was in the public school system for ten years and only home schooled for two. That means he spent 80% of his school years actually attending public school. He also attended a public university for a period. Clearly there were warning signs already in place when he was in public school, but now the focus is on the mental health of home schooled students.

    My question is why wasn’t anything done about Lanza’s problem while he was in school? And there are plenty of school shooters who went through the public school system such Seung-Hui Cho, Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, and Jeff Weise. And the most recent addition to the list only a week or so ago is Jaylen Fryberg, who killed three other students before he killed himself. Fryberg was described in one report “as an outgoing and popular football player, unlike the loner personality that is often associated with school shootings.”

    And those are only the shootings that took place on school grounds. There are plenty of other shootings that happen in the work place that are committed by adults, so I believe the focus on home schooled students is simply wrong.

    The issue is much, much larger than the small percentage of Connecticut home schooled students. In 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were 3,596,080 people living in Connecticut. In 2000, an estimated 2,266 students in CT were home schooled. Since there are no figures available for 2010, let’s add another 100 since the number has been increasing steadily. I ran those numbers through an online percentage calculator and the final figure was 0.0657%.

    I don’t believe that Lanza’s problems were rooted in home schooling. Home schooling has become a straw man for the State. They want to appear to be doing something so that this will “never happen again”, but tragic as it was (and I by no means discount that) short of incarcerating every person in the State, it is virtually impossible to legislate that.

  3. Oldtimer

    The author of this article makes a lot more sense than a lot of older, should be more mature, people who write opinion pieces here or on Ct News Junkie.

    A lot of legislation is proposed, and passed, to meet a need for a politician to be able to say he/she did something to deal with a significant issue. The fact that said legislation accomplishes nothing is immaterial as nobody ever reads new legislation. This proposed legislation probably falls into this category of proposals meant only to boost the proposer’s image and accomplish nothing. This is sad, as there is clearly a lapse in how mental illness is dealt with in CT that allows the sickest of us to isolate themselves in rooms darkened by tinfoil, refuse to take prescribed medication, and dwell on their problems, real or imagined, until the only solution seems to be get some recognition as a mass murderer. Doctors and judges are empowered to commit very sick people for treatment but it seldom happens until after something horrendous happens to confirm the diagnosis or judgment that in-house treatment in a locked ward is essential.

    Doctors are afraid of being sued, judges don’t ever make decisions without certain evidence standards of proof having been presented. The sickest will continue to be un, or under, treated and some will only get serious attention and treatment after they have committed horrendous crimes. In many cases, having committed numerous crimes, before being identified and brought to justice.

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