SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A new bill could prevent Utah school districts from conducting background checks on parents before they are allowed to pull their children from public school into homeschooling.
The bill says a family’s right to privacy needs to be protected. However, people who knew a murdered 12-year-old West Haven boy said his accused killers should have been checked before they took him out of school.
Lawmakers and child abuse prevention advocates said abusive parents will sometimes pull their children from public school and pretend to homeschool them, which limits the number of people who can see a child’s physical condition.
According to District 28 Rep. Nicholeen Peck, the accused killers of Gavin Peterson were not real homeschoolers. She believes his father and stepmother pulled him from class to hide their abuse.
Peck said, “He was a public-school child. They manipulated the system to pull him out for that reason.”
Currently, state law says any parent who has been convicted of child abuse, or one that has been found to have committed abuse and not taken to court, is prohibited from homeschooling their kids.
Peck fully supports that and even advocated for the bill when it was up for debate.
However, she said there was an unintended consequence that came from that state law — she claimed the Davis School District started conducting background checks on all homeschooling parents, which she believes is a huge invasion of privacy.
She said, “Homeschoolers started contacting their attorneys who started contacting me and other people and saying, ‘Hey, what’s going on? This is a violation of privacy. This family has always homeschooled. Why are you background checking them?’”
Peck believes that decision can cause parents to lose trust with the district.
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“When this one district did start doing that, that is exactly what did happen. It was a big blow-up,” she said.
Plus, she believes that if homeschooling parents should go through a background check because of the potential of abuse, then every parent in the public school system should be checked for the exact same reason.
Perhaps instead of a background check, parents would have to sign an affidavit confirming that they’ve never been convicted of or found to have committed child abuse.
“There will be a statement, there, that says that you know that you’re making a legal statement and that this can be used against you if happen to misrepresent on this,” Peck said.
If an abusive parent lies on the affidavit, Peck said they will be held responsible somehow.
“If something happens, like if there was another incident or something was reported in any way, now there is a documentation that holds them, now, also additionally legally responsible for that,” Peck said.
However, for Rachel Reynolds, a former aide at Kanesville Elementary who knew Gavin Peterson, a signed affidavit doesn’t do enough.
“I really don’t think it’s far enough, at all,” she said.
She remembered seeing Gavin rummage through garbage, looking for food. He appeared to be hungry at all times, and other children would frequently give him food to ease his hunger, she said.
Reynolds said Gavin would constantly have injured hands, and was heartbroken when he was taken out of school.
She agreed that a family’s privacy should be protected, but she felt someone in each school district should visit homeschooled kids to ensure they’re safe and getting the education they need.
“I understand that the majority of children that are being homeschooled, they’re in a great situation. Their parents are doing a great job. They’re learning,” Reynolds said. “They’re excelling at home. But, of course for the few, like Gavin, they just get lost.”
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