Homeschoolers facing $6,300 fine

Government officials determined to stamp out "parallel societies" have in the past ordered police to take children from their homes to school and have placed a teenager involuntarily in psychiatric care for being homeschooled. Now they are fining a German husband and wife $6,300 for refusing to require their children to attend public schools. The Home School Legal Defense Association has written a letter to Mrs. Senatorin Renate Jurgens-Pieper in Bremen, asking for a continuation of previous permission for the Neubronner family to teach their children at home. "I understand that this family would like to homeschool their children and that while you previously allowed them to do so you are refusing to permit them to homeschool this year," the letter from HSLDA President J. Michael Smith said. "We also ask you to use your influence to modify the Bremen City-State [law] to make homeschooling possible for anyone who chooses it. To deny parents the right to homeschool their children is to deny them a basic and fundamental human right. Will you consider setting an example for your whole nation that respects the rights of parents and children to be home educated?" German officials targeted an American family of Baptist missionaries for deportation because they belong to a group that refuses "to give their children over to the state school system." The teenager, Melissa Busekros, also returned to her family months after German authorities took her from her home and forcibly detained her in a psychiatric facility for being homeschooled.