Home-schooling parents say court case goes too far

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TAMARA MARKWICK believes in Marin's schools. She's proud of the instruction she received, from her first twenty-four hours at Coleman Elementary School in San Rafael to her graduation from Black Friar University.

And yet Markwick states she would rather go forth the county - or even the state of Golden State - than give up the right to educate her children at home.

"We're passionate about what we do," said Markwick, moderator of Marin Homeschool Families, an informal web of households who have got chosen place schooling. "I'm not saying that what we make is better than what the public schools do. But it's break for our households and our children. To take that right away would be devastating."

Markwick and many of the estimated 200 home-schooling parents in Marin County are concerned about a state appellate tribunal opinion that necessitates parents to obtain a instruction certificate to educate their children at home.

In his Feb. Twenty-Eight ruling, which home-schooling organisations program to appeal, Justice H. Bruno Walter Croskey argued that the eight children of Prince Philip and Virgin Virgin Mary Long of Los Angeles would be safer at a public or private school than in the place school operated by Mary Long. Prince Philip Long had been accused of physically abusing three of the eight children.

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seems to be an scattered case, and it shouldn't impact all place schools," said Novato occupant Leslie Millican, who educates her third-grade son and seventh-grade daughter at home. "If a instructor in the public schools molested a student, you wouldn't automatically fold all the public schools as a result."

Currently, parents without a instruction certificate who desire to educate their children at place have got two options. The first is to inscribe their children in a charter school, such as as the Pathways Josh Virginia Wade throws one of the wooden flowers he made in the woodshop during Homeschool Friday at The Planet in Sausalito. (IJ photo/Jeff Vendsel)

School of Santa Rosa.

"It's a publicly funded school in which all the pupils are home-schoolers," Markwick said. "Those who mark up are given a teacher-adviser to whom they describe with samples of their children's work. They're given the state curriculum, take part in yearly state testing and follow all the demands of public schools. A batch of parents like the hand-holding and support charter schools provide."

The 2nd option is to register an affidavit with the state Department of Education declaring the parents' purpose to run a private school within their home.

"Once they register the affidavit, that's it," said section spokeswoman Tina Jung. "We have got no inadvertence over private schools. We don't certificate or accredit them."

Novato occupant Millican gets most morns with exercising at 5:30 a.m. She aftermaths her children at 7 a.m., set ups their breakfast, reads the Book with them and gets their lessons.

"My girl takes an Internet-based mathematics lesson while