Have you ever been contacted by school or child welfare authorities? How did it resolve itself?

My heart went to my throat when I saw this topic. Back on December 2, we had a CID agent (military police detective) and a county social worker on our front porch. They were investigating an anonymous tip called into their hotline that our child was being abused. WE DID NOT LET THEM IN. ( Do NOT let them in if they do not have a warrant. If you let them in, you are surrendering your constitutional rights!) We are members of HSLDA which I cannot advise strongly enough to be a part of. I was able to hand the social worker a cordless phone with attorneys on the other end. It was an extremely terrifying ordeal for us. But, let me add, we were blessed to see God's hand working and directly intervening during the whole situation. In early January, we received a letter that the allegations were "unsubstantiated due to lack of credible evidence". The allegation never directly mentioned home schooling, but HSLDA attorneys believe homeschooling was at the heart of the anonymous tip that brought all of this on (possibly by a psychotic adult with unresolved abuse issues themselves who couldn't understand why a mother would want to have her school-aged child with her all the time unless it was for something bad). Regardless, I am still leery of many people in our neighborhood. We had been in the neighborhood for less than 3 months when this happened.
I would urge everyone to go to Homeschool Legal Defense Association - and make note of what they have to offer. It is terrifying for us to think that all it takes is for someone to call in - never having to give their name - and based on that alone be investigated for child abuse and threatened to have your child forcibly removed from your home if you do not comply with their "requests".
I still have difficulties communicating coherently about this. In time, I will be better able to discuss this, but even three months after the fact, I still have a hard time. Please join HSLDA. Some things you can't prevent so be prepared.

Dear Nancy,
Welcome to the board! What a scare that must have been!
As a non-practicing attorney, I used to take referral calls for HSLDA. Usually, it was because someone called an anonymous tip line to complain about a neighbor - kids being outside during school hours, etc. It's scary to think that such anonymous nonsense can cause such problems, isn't it?
Christine

quote:

Originally posted by christinefield:
Have you ever been contacted by school or child welfare authorities? How did it resolve itself?

We actually had to deal with child and family services last June. my son was still enrolled in school at the time and on this particular day he didn't go to school. He had diddle daddled all morning and missed the bus. He had done this to the point that I was mad and told him if he missed the bus he had to stay home. My daughter and I had dentist appointments already scheduled and with my being upset with Chandler, I told him to stay at home. (now that I think of it, what was I thinking?) I let my emotions make the decision for me. I was so mad at him that I didn't want to be around him. a brief background: this was the end of 3rd grade and by this point, he was coming home anxiety ridden and not doing well even in the resource room at school. I had had enough!
Anyway, my daughter, Kendall and I headed to the dentist and lo and behold not even 20 minutes after I left the house, the bottem fell out. We had a so called friend that called the police and reported that a severely retarded 10 yr old child had been left at home with no food and was in the closet! Needless to say, the police came to check this out and they were very aggressive, beating on the front door, walking around the outside of the house, banging on the back door. This scared CW so much that he panicked and hid and just cried! By the time I got home the police Sargeant was in my house, along with the pastor of my church and the secretary. Thank God for them. Anyway, the whole thing was a miscommunication between CW and this so called friend of ours. I then realized that he really did have a problem expressing himself. We are working on phone etiquette and his being able to speak clearly.

(As soon as I left the house, CW was hungry and he knew I was upset with him and didn't want to call me. I've always told him to call me before he eats. I really don't know why I did that either. He called this friend and said he was hungry and the phone call went from there. If you put CW on the spot, he'll say whatever you want him to whether it's the truth or not.

CFS was great with us and closed the case the next day. But I have to say that I am now a bit paranoid about the police or even the kids being w/me at the grocery store or outside playing during school hours. I've even considered having ID's made up for the kids to wear whenever we're out in public, saying that they are homeschooled and are part of a christian academy so that people will leave us alone!!

Patte

Hi Patte,
Glad that worked out OK. Has there been any follow-up from authorities, or is it just completely over?
Christine

This is the closest I've come to a brush with the law....
several years ago I wanted my two big boys to begin a "track & field" program so I had the bright idea that that would begin jogging around the neighborhood during the day when traffic was slow. They were stopped by police who thought they were truant. The police didn't believe them when my boys told them they were homeschooled and threatened them with police action. I was pregnant at the time and very, very sick so I didn't want to deal with it and just kept them home. (What a wimp)
The good news is that although this didn't help to develop a love of physical activity, the time inside sure did develop their computer skills and oldest works for our large church now and has done website design for several businesses.

Quiver,
what a scare! In some jurisdictions, they try to pass "daytime curfew" laws to keep kids off the streets during the day. Can you imagine? Yikes! Everytime we ran out for a gallon of milk or a music lesson, we'd get arrested!
Ha!
Christine