Valerie Bonham Moon, News & Commentary Home Page editor for Home Education Magazine, sent the following item to a Missouri homeschooling e-mail list on June 11, 2008. Valerie began, "Springfield mom jailed (2 days) for son's truancy. This is just fyi. I don't think it has strong implications about homeschooling in Missouri. From what I saw when I was looking at the background, the local prosecutor has also had to take on gangs in Springfield schools and appears (from the few reports I looked at) to be a law 'n order kind of guy concerning schooling. Maybe folks from Springfield can fill us in on anything we need to know about that the articles don't tell us. Missouri mom jailed for son's truancy:

http://www.homeedmag.com/blogs/newscomm/?p=1517 ."

     Here is the background information that Valerie provided on her blog. She wrote, "I haven’t seen any mention of this truancy case on Missouri email lists or in previous news alerts, so I had to dig for background on it. The comments at various sites added to the overall picture of the case, and this situation almost looks like one of those unfortunate examples of a continuing collection of bad choices, poor skills, and anger stirred in the crucible of compulsory school attendance.

     "Even though ‘homeschooling’ is mentioned, I saw no indication in the news reports that the prosecutors pursued the case because of ‘homeschooling’ itself. Of course, this is only a reflection of what has been reported, and non-homeschoolers can be unaware of what needs to be looked at concerning ‘homeschooling’ itself. In Missouri the crucial item would be the daily log of activities. No record = no defense."

     Parent gets 2 days in jail for child’s truancy, 10 Jun 2008, KSPR, Springfield, Missouri: Tuesday Kathleen Casteel was sentenced for violating the state’s truancy law. According to Assistant Prosecutor Joe Knipp, Casteel’s son missed nearly half the school days at Reed Middle School last year.

     Mother sentenced to jail for son’s truancy, 11 June 2008, News-Leader.com, Springfield, Missouri: He also ordered Casteel –who has home schooled her son since his enrollment was revoked from Springfield Public Schools –to put the child back into a public school. That provision came after prosecutors argued Casteel was not home schooling her son in compliance with state law, something defense attorneys contested.…Fitzsimmons’ order that Casteel enroll her son in public school also is an aberration, according to Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education spokesman Jim Morris. "That is a rare step," Morris said, noting that neither his office nor many school districts regulate home schooling. "The state has always had a hands-off policy."

     Give truancy trial a meaning, 26 April 2008, News-Leader, Springfield, Missouri: No other school scofflaw in memory has been so brazen as to push the attendance police to this degree. None had demanded a trial in front of a panel of her peers. None had shouted so publicly: This just wasn’t my fault. So what will a chronicler of history say? What does this mean? Was she martyr or malingerer?...The case left the public defenders in the case asking at trial: What purpose does this serve? Observers also ask whether parents like Casteel face a Catch-22: use too much force to get a kid to go to school, you get charged with abuse. Don’t get the kid to school, you can be charged under the truancy law. Greene County Prosecutor Darrell Moore defends the decision by the school district, embraced by his office, to prosecute Casteel.

     Mother from Springfield could get week in jail for son being truant, 24 April 2008, KY3.com, Springfield, Missouri: Casteel testified that her son, who is mentally retarded, didn’t like school and often fought her efforts to make him go. She said he would throw things, leave their home through his bedroom window, and even once tried to jump out of her moving car as she took him to school. Casteel said her son said other Reed students teased him and tried to start fights with him. She also said, part of the time, her son lived with her ex-husband in Buffalo.

     A district attendance advisor testified she visited Casteel’s home about 25 times, and sometimes took the boy to school with her. The advisor also said Casteel’s other children also had attendance problems, and one time she caught Casteel lying about whether the children were home. A Reed attendance secretary said she repeatedly told Casteel to call school if her son wasn’t coming, but Casteel rarely called.

     Comment by Susan: I saw that this morning, Valerie. Blogged it because it reminded me of a situation that occurred in southern IL a couple of years ago. A mom who was a "truant homeschooler" went by the wayside in the IL homeschool community until after the conviction. Then darn if the Regional Office of Ed and the Atty General didn’t think that they should have "home visits" with all homeschoolers in the area to make sure they had "established curriculum" and were homeschooling properly.

     I hope MO homeschoolers pay attention to this. I thought the MO DoE spokesman stating that this is very rare and they have a hands-off policy regarding homeschoolers, while the judge was deciding otherwise was concerning too.

     Comment by Pamela: I followed this case when it occurred and it was a clear cut case the mom simply refused to either get her special needs kid to school or call/report the absence and it was only a 7%-9% attendance yearly. I remember when it came out at the media, the mom stated "I tried homeschooling, but it was too expensive and too many rules" Personally, I cringed and was glad to see this case come and go and out of sight out of mind. I don't see any implications in homeschool world whatsoever, each of these cases were the ultimate extreme.

     Response by Valerie: I'm not happy when I see them either. For blogigng purposes, I'm usually stuck between the rock and hard place of either 'airing the alleged dirty laundry' (which in this case wasn't homeschooling laundry but truancy laundry), or having homeschool critics accuse 'homeschoolers' of ignoring the 'dark side' of homeschooling. I'm glad there are folks like you, Pamela, who know more about the background than what shows up as news reports online.