Utterly Meaningless » Blog Archive » WATCH OUT NEW JERSEY
  • WATCH OUT NEW JERSEY

    Filed at 10:17 am under by dcobranchi

    Potential fallout from the starvation case from yesterday.

    In downtown Collingswood yesterday, Mayor Jim Maley said he has had conversations with school district officials making tentative plans to revamp the district’s home-schooling policy.

    The Jacksons’ sons were home-schooled, Maley said, which required little contact between the school system and the family.

    “We’ve looked internally to see if there was some way we could have picked up on this sooner,” he said.

    Maley said he would use a town forum scheduled for Wednesday to remind residents of their obligation to call DYFS about any suspected abuse.

    New Jersey has some of the best homeschooling laws in the country. I hope the bureaucrats don’t use this case to tighten up the regs.

    10 Responses to “WATCH OUT NEW JERSEY”


    Comment by
    meep
    October 27th, 2003
    at 12:09 pm

    Here’s my question as to the whole “homeschooling == hiding abused kids” thing — if they =really= care about the children, why aren’t they institutiong home visits FROM BIRTH? It’s not like the kids reach age 6 and =bing= the risk of abuse goes up dramatically.


    Comment by
    Cheryl
    October 27th, 2003
    at 12:18 pm

    It is absurd to attack homeschooling for this tragedy. Firstly, there was already a social worker visiting the home. Yes, they could of hid the boys during those times, but the social worker had to be grossly incompetent not to have made this discovery anyway. Secondly, a neighbor had seen the boy(s), thought something might not be right, but didn’t want to get involved or bother the family! So, the not-in-the-public-eye arguement is crap and the officials have no commonsense. (Or more likely are trying to cover their collective butts)Bah!


    Comment by
    Daryl
    October 27th, 2003
    at 12:21 pm

    MP,
    Don’t give them any ideas. Actually, Howard Dean initiated something similar in Vermont.


    Comment by
    Tim Haas
    October 27th, 2003
    at 12:27 pm

    There are no regs — just case law and a nice firm document from the state DoE (which I helped to vet three years ago as part of a task force) that tells districts what they can and can’t do. Districts can’t make policy.

    I’ll be attending the forum Wednesday night in my capacity as one of the officers of the New Jersey Homeschool Association to emphasize the point that this was a DYFS failure, not a homeschooling problem.


    Comment by
    Andrea
    October 27th, 2003
    at 12:51 pm

    Here where I live, you are visiting by a social worker within a week after taking a new baby home from the hospital. You will receive from one to five visits depending on how clean and child-safe your house is. I don’t know what happens if you still aren’t up to par after the fifth visit. Perhaps they take the baby.

    I don’t know if this is state-wide or just local but I had to put up with it after both of my children were born. Nothing like getting home from the hospital after a c-section with staples holding your abdomen together and having to clean house for a social worker invasion. It’s not like I keep a dirty house but usually after major surgery a person is prone to letting a few things slide. I know my doctor would not have approved of my vacuuming and mopping while doubled over in pain.


    Comment by
    Daryl
    October 27th, 2003
    at 1:31 pm

    UGH! How long have you been living in the Soviet Union?


    Comment by
    meep
    October 27th, 2003
    at 1:38 pm

    What I found interesting from my recent childbirth experience was that the only “social worker-type” who came by was to drop off a form to get the birth certificate & ask for a Social Security Card at the same time… and the other mother in the room was visited by a social worker a couple times talking about various things (I have no idea about all the stuff, as I was pretty beat). From what I could understand, the mother may have been uninsured or some such — I wonder if they bug the people with no health insurance or are on Medicaid…

    I cannot see how any county could hire enough people to make visits to all the babies’ homes even once. I’m guessing these people don’t have enough to do — perhaps there are some road cleanup activities they could get involved with.


    Comment by
    Tim Haas
    October 27th, 2003
    at 2:08 pm

    With both of our kids (born ’92 and ’97), we got one visit from a nurse with our HMO. Checking in on their investment, I guess *g*. No government employee would have gotten past my front door.


    Comment by
    Elizabeth
    October 28th, 2003
    at 6:09 am

    The NY Times says that NINE people were fired by Youth & Family Svcs over this fiasco. The family attended church every Sunday. Here’s today’s word problem: If nine social workers and one congregation can’t keep four boys from starving, how many homeschool regulations would we need to prevent this from happening again?


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    October 28th, 2003
    at 6:15 am

    But, it’s FOR THE CHILDREN(tm).