After a woman from Connecticut was accused of keeping her captive stepson for two decades, education defenders said that the home education system is largely regulated by the State could allow abusive parents to keep their children from public view without protective supervision.
The stepson, now 32, told the Police that he was withdrawn from the public school in fourth grade and was educated at home.
His stepmother, Kimberly Sullivan, was released from prison on Thursday after she registered a bail of $ 300,000 for imprisonment and hungry charges of her stepson.
His lawyer Ioannis Kaloidis said Sullivan denies any irregularity.
The Waterbury Police have not publicly identified the Diker, who said he has 5 feet 9 and weighs 68 pounds. He told the Police that he had been severely abused since the age of 11, supporting “prolonged abuse, hunger, severe negligence and inhuman treatment,” they said.
When he was retired from school as a child, a former director, Tom Pannone, came to call the family door, Pannone said in an interview.
Pannone, who was director of Barnard Elementary School now closed in Waterbury, said they gave him several explanations about why Sullivan’s son no longer attended class in the early 2000s, including that he was being educated at home.
The interim superintendent Darren Schwartz said: “Based on the available information, the student was not insignified from Waterbury public schools in 2004.”
Waterbury police lieutenant Ryan Bessette, told NBC News that the stepson told authorities that his formal education ended around the fourth grade and was then educated at home.
Pannone told NBC Connecticut: “He could simply withdraw his son from school, and he didn’t even have to do a plan for home education. It was a very lax system, and many parents only said: “I am educating them at home,” and that was all. “
Sarah Eagan, from the Children’s Defense Center, a legal rights law firm for children, said that many states have some regulatory policy or framework around the children of the school with the declared purpose of education at home, but that Connecticut has no clear guidelines.
“When a child is triggered from school, with a caregiver who says: ‘I am withdrawing my son to school at home’, that ends. That is the end. We will not find ourselves again. We will verify,” said Eagan. “Because Connecticut has no system for that and has been reluctant to create a system still.”
Eagan, who previously worked in the Office of Child Advocate, a state surveillance agency said that although parents have the right to educate their children as they consider convenient, states have a clear legal interest in guaranteeing the security and education of their citizens.
That is why the legal challenges for the regulations of education in the home of the states have been maintained for the most part, he said.
“It is a balance of rights and responsibilities, and needs a reflective balance, because most people who direct their children’s education are probably so well and properly,” said Eagan.
“But you have people who take advantage of the system, and it is not really about education at home. These are people who pretend, people who use the pretext of home education as an appearance to get their son from public opinion. “
The years of cruelty for Sullivan’s stepdaughter ended on February 17 when he used a lighter, disinfectant for hands and paper to fire, he told the police.
When the authorities found him, he was “extremely emaciated, his hair was entangled and careless, he was very dirty and all the teeth seemed to be rotten,” according to an affidavit of arrest.
“The investigators also discovered that they had provided only minimal amounts of food and water, which led to their extremely malnourished condition,” said the police.
To eliminate a public school student in Connecticut, a father “should formally present that intention of the district offices and present documents for the” retirement of the school from the school “, according to the State.
While they are told parents to maintain “a portfolio for each child that contains samples of activities, tasks, projects and evaluations, as well as a record of books and materials used”, regulations do not seem to have significant application provisions.
The National Association of Legal Defense of Education at home has a place among the least regulated states so that parents or guardians eliminate their class children.
Connecticut, Texas and Idaho “have no warning, low regulation” about home education, the association said.
While state officials could ask parents to show their children’s work portfolios, the group said “it is not necessary” and that “you are asked to participate in an optional portfolio review, contact us to get help.”
