Educators Fear Michigan AG Wants Warrantless Searches Of Homeschoolers

Tierin-Rose Mandelburg | February 27, 2024
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Last week the Michigan State Board of Education met to discuss a breach of privacy that the Michigan Attorney General would like to implement against homeschooling families in the state.

During the meeting, members claimed that the AG is preparing to conduct warrantless entry into people’s homes to inspect homeschooling. 

Several board members were critical of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s idea to create a list of families that participate in homeschooling. “She basically said, we want this list so that we can have unwarranted home entry, without a warrant. Warrantless home entry into homeschool,” board member Tom McMillin said. 

He noted that we have a legal system that indicates that you need a warrant to enter someone’s home but argues AG Nessel essentially wants to go around that warrant and barge into families homes on a whim.

McMillian insisted that this wouldn’t be a list for mere record keeping. “It’s gonna go beyond registration,” he said, “they’re either naive or they’re being disingenuous for anybody to say all we wanna do is have a list. It’s gonna go significantly further than that they’re gonna either want to know exactly what’s being taught or they’re gonna want entry into the houses.” 

During the meeting, board members noted that there were cases where children who were allegedly homeschooled ended up in the foster care system after being victims of abuse. Often foster care cases are opened up when a teacher or member of school staff notices either abuse or neglect in a child at school. Usually then an investigation about the home situation is opened up. When a child is homeschooled, there isn’t this middle man to speak on behalf of kids. 

If Michigan’s intent with the random inspections was to keep kids out of abuse, that’s one thing, but users speculate the board has an ulterior motive.

Related: GMA Airs Surprisingly Positive Segment On the Rise in Homeschooling

Board member, Nikki Snyder, was not in favor of Nessel’s idea. She insists it isn’t about keeping kids safe but is more about government overreach.

I do think it’s oppressive to ask a student that has left the public education system for whatever reason they’ve left to then ask them to register with that same system. We wouldn’t do that in any other facet of society and so to give people the freedom to exercise choices that work best for them is extremely important.

She also added, “I just really wanna push back on things we’ve talked about at this table. Public education is not safer than homeschooling and that means its incumbent upon us to address that” before indicating that the public education system in the state needs a “safety overhaul before we can claim that homeschool leaves students more vulnerable.”

She also listed many issues of safety in the schools like sexual abuse and raised the point that if they don’t have the energy and resources to properly vet and check in on teachers, how are they going to have the resources to check in on every single parent homeschooling in the state? “That’s unreasonable.”

“What happens in other states when they register students in these buckets,” she added, “is we end up overseeing their curriculum. They’re making specific choices to not be in public education so that they can access a curriculum we’re not choosing to administer to them and there’s nothing wrong with that."

The left doesn’t like homeschooling. They want your kids to go to public school so that they can brainwash them for six-hours a day, teach them about a delusional sense of identity and groom them into believing leftist talking points. Homeschooling is viewed as a threat to the left as it often protects kids from the harmful policies that public schools nowadays put their roots in.

The registration for homeschooled students is currently practiced in all but eleven states and I know people that’ve specifically not moved into certain states due to their implementation of those lists.

Some states require notification as well as yearly testing and vaccine requirements. Others also dictate what curriculum parents can and cannot teach. Michigan, where this meeting took place, doesn’t require any of that because again, that’s between a parent and their child. 

The thing the Michigan AG is failing to realize is that there's a difference between secrets and privacy. Homeschooling parents merely want to be able to do what’s best for their kids without government interference. If it’s taking a field trip to a science center rather than reading a chapter about chemistry, so be it. If it’s teaching a class about how to succeed in adulthood instead of learning about critical race theory, great!

That’s the beauty of homeschooling. Parent’s get the choice. But that’s threatening to the left because then they lose control. 

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