SKL Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I don't think it's a good use of the education budget to wage legal battles over what is allowed in a lending library provided for parents of homeschoolers. Schools will often pull the "offending" materials not for principled reasons, but because they have more important things to invest their resources into. Therefore frivolous complaints like this can have the effect of infringing legal speech/actions. Not cool. What ever happened to live and let live? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Frivolous? There is nothing frivolous about this. We can agree to disagree. But perhaps you could explain to me how it harms anybody. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I don't know that it is clearly inappropriate and illegal. I think this falls into a very grey area. We don't have enough detail to know how the tax payer dollars are actually being used. Maybe it is a donation that is being used to house the library. We don't know and should not assume. Maybe the parents just look at the materials and then go out and buy their own copies. And, FWIW, parents do have the right to indoctrinate their kids in any belief system they want. Whether we approve or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I don't think we have to agree to disagree. This is pretty clearly inappropriate and illegal. Why don't you explain why it is necessary to use tax payer dollars to help parents indoctrinate their kids? The stuff was donated. I never said it was "necessary." We don't fight/sue schools over everything they do that isn't "necessary." Quite a few of the things they do use direct taxpayer money for are not "necessary." If it's so wrong to have religious material in the same building that houses a public school, then all the children being raised Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc.... should also be banned. It is far more likely that a kid will receive religious information from the kid sitting next to him than from the homeschool parents' lending library. Maybe they just shouldn't have a homeschool lending library if people are going to be so injured by seeing stuff on the shelves that they don't want. In fact, if I were a school administrator and this complaint crossed my desk, I'd be informing the homeschoolers that they needed to find a new home for their lending library. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Abuse? Really? I see stuff like this and think it's time to end the institution of public schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I still haven't seen anyone explain how this actually hurts anybody. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liber Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Tolerance only seems to run one way these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Maybe the parents could set up the lending library with all the materials on the sidewalk across the school. Being sure to follow the spacing required for handguns and drug sales. Get your Abeka here! Story of the World, Volumes I,II, and III! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I'll bet the school's internet facility allows religious stuff to slip through. Wonder when they'll sue over that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Saying that it is provided makes it seem like the state bought it and forces people to use it. The state did not buy it, nor is anyone forced to use it. Parents may use anything in the library for a fee. Or not. It is entirely up to the parents, who are the legal educators of their children. I do think the entire idea is not as black and white as all of us might like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Lulu* Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I don't know that it is clearly inappropriate and illegal. I think this falls into a very grey area. We don't have enough detail to know how the tax payer dollars are actually being used. Maybe it is a donation that is being used to house the library. We don't know and should not assume. Maybe the parents just look at the materials and then go out and buy their own copies. After all these pages, this is where I am as well. Because it is clear that CO has a wide array of homeschool/public school enmeshments, we just don't have enough information to know if the setup is violating the law. It seems to me that something is off, but that is coming from my vantage point of having never homeschooled in a state that allowed a crossover between public and home school students/services. And no matter what your position on if it should be allowed, having the issue and the laws around it clarified is neither ridiculous or frivolous. As citizens we all are benefited when the laws and ordinances are clear, even the ones that do not directly impact our lives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mytwomonkeys Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 We can agree to disagree. But perhaps you could explain to me how it harms anybody. i really agree with you. i'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around how this is really harming the OP or anyone. it is a lending library for homeschoolers to borrow things & use with their families at home. homeschoolers often use charters to receive money to purchase curriculum (and it cannot be religious in nature). but if the lending library also offers religious materials that were donated, that is a not a huge deal to me. sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 And no matter what your position on if it should be allowed, having the issue and the laws around it clarified is neither ridiculous or frivolous. As citizens we all are benefited when the laws and ordinances are clear, even the ones that do not directly impact our lives. This ideal will never be reached, and we will always have to balance the benefit of everything being perfectly clear vs. the cost of fighting over immaterial things. There's something to be said for picking one's battles. Even if we individually don't have better things to do, the schools / administrations do. This is why the law allows people to sue only if they have "standing," i.e., are sufficiently affected by a situation to justify forcing the other side to fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Lulu* Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 We will have to agree to disagree then, because I find having complete clarity of how and where homeschooling interacts with the state to be a far cry from immaterial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 If a football coach attempted to convert his students to Islam/Judaism/Whateverism, would it matter one iota whether some of the athletes were technically homeschooled? No. It would be an impermissible endorsement of religion made by a public school. That is a completely different situation, because it would be a school employee proselytizing and the players are a captive audience (it's not like the lending library books that are merely sitting on a shelf to be borrowed or ignored as the parent desires). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Having clarity would be interesting and possibly useful, but for me personally, the more that homeschooling in CO operates in grey areas, the more freedom I personally have. This requires me to have a live and let live philosophy regarding my fellow homeschoolers in the hope that the state won't take any more interest in us than it already does. Born and bred here, we still have a bit of the wild west. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 This requires me to have a live and let live philosophy regarding my fellow homeschoolers This is what is sorely needed in this situation IMHO. Don't like the books? Don't use them but MYOB about others having access to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 I think the inclusion of other sectarian materials would probably make the whole situation more palatable to more people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBM Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Why not contact your local ACLU affiliate? Is this Colorado? I don't think you have to give too much information about yourself or possibly even the school. https://www.aclu.org/affiliate/colorado Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[email protected] Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Closing this because it is simply causing too many posters, on both sides, to report each other. Take it to PM, folks. Moderator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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