One way to interpret the decision in El Paso ISD v. McIntyre is to say that the Texas Court of Appeals for the Eighth District held that home-school kids have a right to some basic level of education, or that parents who home-school their kids have an obligation to teach them something.
It’s not at all that straightforward, though (is it ever?) The court’s decision was largely based on procedural issues, with a considerable amount of attention given to whether the McIntyres had “exhausted their administrative remedies.” In plain English, people have to go through an administrative procedure before filing certain types of lawsuits, including a suit against a government entity. In this type of case, the process would require a complaint to a school administrator, followed by the superintendent, followed by the school board.
The school district asked the appeals court to rule that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the case because the plaintiffs went to court before going through the required administrative process. The appellate court agreed.
The facts of the case, as depicted by the appellate court, make it tempting to hope that this decision will have a far-reaching impact on the more extreme forms of religious homeschooling. The McIntyres sound, uh, interesting:
The McIntyres have nine children, including the five minor children who are parties to the law suit. After completion of the Fall 2004 semester, the McIntyres withdrew their children from private school to begin home schooling them. Initially, the children were taught out of empty space in a motorcycle dealership owned by Michael [McIntyre, one of the plaintiffs] and his twin brother, Tracy. Tracy testified in his deposition that during the time home schooling operated out of the dealership, he never observed the children pursuing traditional schoolwork. While the children would sing or play instruments, he never saw them reading books or doing arithmetic, nor did he observe any computers or other school equipment. Tracy overhead one of the McIntyre children tell a cousin that they did not need to do schoolwork because they were going to be raptured. Tracy discussed the situation with his parents, Gene and Shirene. In August 2005, due to a family dispute, the home school was moved from the motorcycle dealership to a rental house owned by the McIntyres. [Emphasis added.]
This eventually led to an investigation by an attendance officer for the El Paso ISD, and a surprising revelation:
In November [2006], Gene and Shirene met with Mark Mendoza, the District’s designated attendance officer, and expressed concerns that their grandchildren were not attending school or otherwise receiving a proper education. After the meeting, Mendoza confirmed that the oldest of the McIntyre children, Tori, had run away from home at age seventeen so she could “attend school.” He discovered that when Tori enrolled at Coronado High School, she was unable to provide any information regarding the level of her education or the curriculum provided as part of her home school education. The McIntyres refused to provide
any information to the District on Tori’s behalf. As a result, Tori was placed as a second semester freshman, a year and a half behind her age group.
It might just be me, but it’s not every day that you hear about a teenager running away from home so that she can go to school. After further investigation, with little to no cooperation from the children’s parents, the attendance officer filed truancy complaints:
Relying on information provided by the children’s grandparents, his confirmation of information regarding Tori’s inability to describe her home school education, and the refusal of the McIntyres to provide the District with any written assurance regarding the curriculum they were using “from somebody who had firsthand knowledge of the homeschooling education that was happening in the home,” Mendoza filed truancy complaints. In the blanks that would normally have listed the dates of absence on the truancy complaint, Mendoza wrote, “Has not met home school verification requirements.” According to Mendoza, he did not believe that the McIntyres had provided sufficient evidence of a bona fide home school.
The appellate court’s decision is not directly related to the truancy complaints, though. In fact, the assistant DA handling that case dismissed the charges after what, based on my reading of the appellate court’s description, sounds like a complete stonewall by the entire family.
The appellate court’s decision instead comes from the lawsuit filed by the parents against the school district, Mendoza, and others, with the help of the Home School Legal Defense Association, claiming violations of state statutes including the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act (TRFRA), as well as both the Texas and U.S. Constitutions. The school district filed multiple motions, including two pleas to the jurisdiction, which basically allege that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit at all. One plea to the jurisdiction claimed that the McIntyres failed to provide pre-suit notice as required by TRFRA, and the other claimed that they failed to exhaust their administrative remedies.
The trial court denied the school district’s motions, and it filed an interlocutory (i.e. before a final trial) appeal with the Eighth District. That’s the case that we are looking at right now. The appellate court spent a great deal of time on the “exhaustion of administrative remedies” question. I won’t bore you any further will legal analyzations, so suffice it to say that the appellate court agreed that the administrative remedies were not exhausted, and the plaintiffs did not fall under any exception to the requirement. It reversed the trial court’s denial of the plea to the jurisdiction on that issue and rendered judgment in favor of the school district.
This effectively means that the lawsuit is dismissed as to the school district, but the plaintiffs might be able to bring the suit again if they follow the right procedures. Still the case makes some important observations with regard to home schooling. The court discusses a seminal Texas Supreme Court case regarding home schooling, Texas Educ. Agency v. Leeper, 893 S.W.2d 432 (Tex. 1994), which set limits on how home school programs may qualify for exemption from compulsory school attendance laws.
Ultimately, I like the way Americans United for Separation of Church and State described the McIntyre decision:
The government has a compelling interest in making sure that children are educated. That’s a well-established legal fact.
There’s also a well-established legal right to home school. But that right, like all rights, is subject to certain restrictions. Parents do have the right to home school, but they don’t have the right to provide their children with a substandard education or, like the McIntyres, deny their children an education altogether. The law is clear: You can believe Jesus is coming back at midnight if you want. You can even tell your children that it’s a fact.
But you still have to teach them how to read.
