'They slapped Laura, knocking her glasses off of her face'

 SWAT team tasers, pepper-sprays homeschoolers

"A Missouri homeschooling family is suing a sheriff and another officer who forcibly entered their home without a warrant, Tasered the father, pepper-sprayed the mother and put their children in the custody of social service workers.

A court already has ruled that the actions of Sheriff Darren White and Capt. David Glidden of Nodaway County, Missouri, violated the U.S. Constitution, resulting in the dismissal of charges of child endangerment and resisting arrest against the couple, Jason and Laura Hagan, of New Hampton.
The lawsuit, which seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorneys costs and fees, was brought on behalf of the couple by the Home School Legal Defense Association, the world’s leading advocate for homeschooling families.
Attorney James Mason, senior counsel for HSLDA, told WND the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure were added to the Constitution for a reason.
“We need to be vigilant,” he said. “We need to be willing to stand up for our rights.”
He said authorities sometimes need to be reminded that “rules apply to them, too.”
The complaint, filed Nov. 14, alleges the the officers came to the Hagan residence because a social worker was investigating a report of a messy home.
The case worker wanted to inspect a second time, and the Hagans refused, so she called Glidden and White.
Glidden first demanded to be allowed into the home and was denied permission. So, according to the complaint, he pepper-sprayed Jason and then Laura.
“Glidden then turned to Jason, who was still standing, and shot him in the back with his Taser,” the complaint said.
When Laura closed the front door, Glidden continued triggering the Taser through the closed door.
Then White joined in.
“Together they forced open the door and found Laura and Jason lying on the floor,” HSLDA said.
They “slapped Laura, knocking her glasses off of her face,” they threatened to shoot the family dog, they threw a telephone across the room, called Laura a “liar,” handcuffed the parents and threatened to let Jason fall down, according to the complaint.
It all took place in front of the three children, ages about 13, 10 and 8, who were taken into state custody, where they remained for months.
When the allegations made by social workers and the officers against the couple reached court, a judge summarily tossed the case.
“The court will not allow [an] exception to sanction warrantless entry into a private residence by pepper spray and Taser. If the officer had a warrant in hand and such force was necessary, that is a different story, but those are not the facts of this case,” the judge said
The judge ruled all information the officers obtained was disallowed.
“The state has not offered sufficient, if indeed any, evidence of an exception that would justify a warrantless entry,” the judge said.
A WND request to the sheriff’s office for comment did not produce a response.
“The Fourth Amendment strikes a carefully crafted balance between a family’s right to privacy and the government’s need to enforce the law,” said HSLDA in its report. “In most situations, government agents cannot simply force their way into a home. Instead, they must explain to a neutral magistrate why they need to enter the home, and they must provide real evidence to support that need.
“This rule applies to all government agents,” the report said. “Court after court has agreed that there is no social services exception to the Fourth Amendment.”
The report said: “All too often, law enforcement officers and child-welfare workers act as if the Fourth Amendment does not apply to CPS investigations. They are wrong. The Fourth Amendment is a legal shield that protects people from exactly the kind of mistreatment the Hagans endured.”
The organization said warnings of the consequences of violating the Fourth Amendment are abundant.
It quoted Doriane L. Coleman, a law professor at Duke who has written “Storming the Castle to Save the Children: The Ironic Costs of a Child-welfare Exception to the Fourth Amendment.”
Coleman wrote that the law-enforcement actions “epitomize deep intrusion[s] in both symbolic and actual respects.”
“They can shatter the innocence of even the youngest of children, causing a broad range of emotional responses, including ‘trauma, anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, stigmatization, powerlessness, self-doubt, depression, and isolation.’”
HSLDA’s report said there “are rules, and they exist for a reason.”
“Law enforcement can only work if our officers follow the laws themselves. If we stand by and allow law enforcement to flagrantly disregard our Fourth Amendment rights, those rights will be eroded and eventually ignored. And real parents and real children will continue to be harmed,” the report said.
The Missouri case alleges violation of the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable search, unlawful seizure, excessive force and violation of the plaintiffs’ “family integrity and privacy.”"

Source; Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/swat-team-tasers-pepper-sprays-homeschoolers/#pEJH0vgOFrQUpWX5.99

*The posts made in this blog are of our opinion only* Without Prejudice UCC 1-207

WND EXCLUSIVE. Federal database to include your children? Regulations creating repository for 'every public school student's personal information'

The federal government is laying the foundation for a national database that could include all of the personal details of every student in every public school in every state, warns a report by the leading homeschool advocacy group.

The report, compiled by Will Estrada and Katie Tipton of the Home School Legal Defense Association, points out that a “slew of new federal incentives and federally funded data models have spurred states to monitor students’ early years, performance in college, and success in the workforce by following ‘individuals systematically and efficiently across state lines.’”

The authors “believe that this expansion of state databases is laying the foundation for a national database filled with personal student data.”

The report notes that the U.S. Department of Education is banned by law from creating a national data system, but under the Obama administration, new regulations have opened the door.

Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, parents were promised they could access their children’s personally identifiable information collected by schools. But the schools were banned from sharing the details with third parties.

The law explains that personally identifiable information includes names of family members, address, Social Security number, date and place of birth, disciplinary record and biometric record.

The new report says, however, the Department of Education has reshaped FERPA through regulations so that “any government or private entity that the department says is evaluating an education program has access to students’ personally identifiable information.”

Postsecondary institutes and workforce education programs can also be given the data.

While the change has prompted a still-unresolved lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the framework of a national database slowly is slowly being implemented, the report says.

The Home School Legal Defense Association has long opposed the creation of a national database.

“We believe that it would threaten the privacy of students, be susceptible to abuse by government officials or business interests, and jeopardize student safety,”  the report says. “We believe that detailed data systems are not necessary to educate young people. Education should not be an Orwellian attempt to track students from preschool through assimilation into the workforce.”

The report points out that guidelines for building state longitudinal data systems that can collect and link personally identifiable information across state lines have been released by task forces funded by both the Department of Education and special interest groups

Many of the recommendations were compiled in the National Education Data Model, a project funded by the Department of Education and overseen by the Council for Chief State School Officers, one of the organizations that created Common Core.

Already, 18 states and many local education agencies are building databases, the report says, and other states are using similar database models.

“Concentrating data collection around a few models means that states are getting closer and closer to keeping the same data and using the some interoperable technology to store it,” HSLDA reports.

The report says 46 states now have databases that can track students from preschool through the workforce.

Several other federal programs also are pushing the creation of databases, including Race to the Top, which was to allocate $4.35 billion to schools that make “certain changes” in their policies, including the adoption of the Common Core initiative, which seeks to standardize curricula nationally.

“Every state that agrees to the Common Core in order to receive RTTT funding also commits ‘to design, develop, and implement statewide P-20 (preschool through workforce) longitudinal data systems’ that can be used in part or in whole by other states,” the report says.

HSLDA warns that the “heavy involvement of the federal government in enticing states to create databases of student-specific data that are linked between states is creating a de facto centralized database.”

“Before our eyes a ‘national database’ is being created in which every public school student’s personal information and academic history will be stored,” the report says.

The authors of Common Core, the report notes, “have been heavily involved in developing data models and overseeing data collection.”

The impact might someday be measured in lost dreams and evaporated opportunities, the report suggests.

“A crucial part of the responsibility of parents is protecting the privacy of their children. This enables parents not only to guard their children’s physical safety, but also to nurture their individuality and secure opportunities for them to pursue their dreams apart from government interference,” the report says.

“The rise of national databases threatens these freedoms.”
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FAQ

1. What is the Common Core?

The Common Core State Standards (“the Common Core”) are two sets of K–12 academic standards that outline what students are expected to learn in English language arts and mathematics each year from kindergarten through high school. The goal of this checklist is not literacy, proficiency, or increased graduation rates but to make students “college- and career-ready.”¹ The Common Core was written by the National Governors Association (NGA)—an organization of governors, their head staff members, and policy makers—and the Council of Chief State School Officials (CCSSO). States receive Race to the Top (RTTT) federal funding for committing to adopt and implement the Common Core and to collect student data from preschool through the workforce. Read the topic paper >>

2. Is the Common Core already being implemented?

3. How is the federal government involved in the Common Core?

4. Does the Common Core have a philosophical bias?

5. Does the Common Core provide for individualized education?

6. Is there any evidence that centralized education works better than decentralized education?

7. Will the Common Core impact homeschools and private schools?

8. Does the Common Core lead to a national curriculum?

9. Does it matter that testing is being aligned with the Common Core?

10. Does the Common Core include a national database?

11. Who supports the Common Core and why?

12. Who opposes the Common Core and why?



*The posts made in this blog are of our opinion only* Without Prejudice UCC 1-207

State 'nanny' plan described as 'sinister'. Proposal might even violate human rights laws on privacy, family

WND EXCLUSIVE

State 'nanny' plan described as 'sinister'

Proposal might even violate human rights laws on privacy, family

A bill in Scotland that would assign every minor a government “nanny” with the legal authority to ensure they are raised in a government-approved manner has faced headwinds from family and homeschool organizations, and now the lawyers are lining up against it.
WND reported earlier that parents in Scotland are fighting the “anti-parent” proposal. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, the measure would assign a government social worker, or “named person, to ‘[promote, support or safeguard the well-being" of every child from birth.
The government worker would have considerable authority to order what the child and parents must do regarding matters such as schooling, health and social activities.
It's part of an initiative that calls for "Getting it Right for Every Child."
But now the Scottish Express reports the Law Society of Scotland has warned that the plan could violate European human rights laws, and one expert described the idea as "sinister."
"The proposals could interfere with Article 8 of ECHR, the right to respect for private and family life, as there is scope for interference between the role of the 'named person' and the exercise of a parent's rights and responsibilities," said the Law Society's Morag Driscoll.
"It could be interpreted as disproportionate state interference," she said.
The nation's Schoolhouse Home Education Association said the legislation "is open to abuse and misinterpretation and many parents could fall foul of overzealous agents of the state or people who are just plain busybodies."
It was First Minister Alex Salmond who recently called the plan "sinister."
The Children and Young People Bill, the Scottish Express said, also would mean children's personal details can be recorded, stored and shared through a central database.
"The legislation would also allow children who are angry with their parents to report them to their named person, with potentially devastating consequences," the report said. "Hundreds of parents have already signed an online petition demanding the Big Brother-style proposals are ditched."
It was an unidentified spokeswoman for the Scottish government who explained the idea.
"The protection and promotion of the well-being of Scotland's children and our aim of making our nation the best place for children to grow up are at heart of the Children and Young People Bill," she said. "Our focus is on the safety and protection of children. The named person, who is likely to be a health visitor, head or deputy head teacher and will usually already know the child, will be a first point of contact if help is needed. This is formalizing what should already happen and there is evidence it is working well in many areas. We are confident it is compliant with European law."
However, the Law Society raised questions.
Driscoll said the policy aims behind the legislation "are admirable and we recognize the genuine effort to improve the lives of children and young people in Scotland."
"However, we are not convinced that this legislation achieves those aims," she said.
"We are also unclear about how this legislation will work in practice and in particular, the resources required to administer the 'named person' scheme."
WND reported that Will Estrada, director of federal relations for the HSLDA, believes the idea is an outgrowth of the general belief held by organizations such as the United Nations that government knows best for everyone.
"This is an example of why HSLDA opposes ratification of [various] U.N. treaties,” Estrada said. “The argument that these treaties are mere altruistic expressions melts away when you look at what is happening in the legislatures of countries who ratify the treaties and try to live up to their treaty obligations. A ‘named-person’ for every child and national databases? No thanks.”
When WND reported earlier on the issue, it was noted that while the number of child-abuse cases in Scotland has remained about the same over the last five years, the incidents that do occur have received more media attention.
The new bill that came as a response has been praised by Aileen Campbell, the nation’s minister for children and young people.
“This government’s vision for children and young people is clear: We want Scotland to be the best place in the world for them to grow up,” she said.
The proposal outlines that a social worker will look after and monitor the child to be certain the child’s rights are not being violated based upon the standards of the United Nations Conference on the Rights of the Child.
“A local authority is to make arrangements for the provision of a named person service in relation to each child residing in its area,” the new proposal explains.

*The posts made in this blog are of our opinion only* Without Prejudice UCC 1-207

Mom booted from hospital as baby snatched. Now judge told to ignore med center behavior, social worker's 'patently false' claim

 Re-posted from WND

"A social worker who called police after apparently making up a story about a possible danger to a newborn, and the hospital that then gave a shot to the infant based on the social worker’s story, now want a federal court to ignore their actions.
According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, which brought a case against the Hershey Medical Center and social worker Angelica Lopez-Heagy on behalf of Scott and Jodi Ferris, the defendants have asked the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania to dismiss the claim.
HSLDA confirms it is working on a rebuttal to the request for dismissal.
“HSLDA is in the process of responding to these motions, ensuring that the Ferris family receives the justice they deserve,” the organization told WND today.
The hospital and social worker’s agency in Pennsylvania declined to respond to WND requests for comment, and the court said the case details were not available online. Dauphin County, where the incident took place, also declined to respond to a WND request for comment.
HSLDA said the defendants want the court to dismiss the case and ignore the fact that the social worker and hospital worked together to administer vaccinations to a newborn over the objections of the parents.
That’s not all.
According to the court filing and a report from Michael P. Farris, chairman of the HSLDA, the case developed this way:

The couple had been planning a home birth with a midwife, but the labor started earlier than expected, so the midwife encouraged them to go to the local hospital. Baby “Annie” was born in the ambulance in the parking lot.
While the hospital took charge of the newborn, Jodi began asking the nurses about her baby, and then the hospital staff gave her an injection without telling her what it was.
Eventually a doctor told her that Annie scored a 9 on a physical exam applied to newborns known as the APGAR test. A score of 8 or higher is considered healthy. (It is unclear when the score was given since she was in the ambulance at birth.)
But shortly after this a different doctor told Jodi that Annie was “very sick” and would need to stay in the hospital. This doctor’s comments were accompanied by an explanation of his disdain for midwives saying, “Too many people think they know what they’re doing.”
Then, after several hours, another staffer told Scott and Jodi that Annie would have to stay in the hospital for 48 to 72 hours for observation, explaining the law requires that. (There is no such law in Pennsylvania.)
Shortly later, a government social worker named Angelica Lopez-Heagy came into Jodi’s room announcing that she was there to conduct an investigation. Jodi asked to know the allegations, and the social worker refused to answer.
When Jodi questioned that, the social worker said, “Since you’re not going to cooperate, I’ll just go and call the police and we can take custody of the baby.”
Jodi agreed to cooperate, but then the hospital asked to check Annie’s white blood cell count and to perform a strep test. Jodi agreed to the testing. Then the hospital demanded that they give Annie a shot for Hepatitis B. Jodi said that she would agree only if they tested her or Annie to see if either of them were positive. If so, then she was quite willing to have the shot for Annie. The hospital claimed that they had forgotten about this earlier when it was still possible to test that day, and that they needed to give the shot anyway without any testing.

Farris wrote: “Put yourself in Jodi’s shoes at this moment. You gave birth that morning in an ambulance. The hospital has made wild and conflicting claims about your baby’s health all day long. You are exhausted. You are in pain. Your husband has gone to check on your children. And a social worker who has threatened to take your baby into police custody is standing in your hospital room demanding that you make an immediate decision.”
Jodi asked that the decision wait until her husband returned, and the social worker then produced a “safety plan” and demanded a signature.
When Jodi said she wanted her husband and an attorney to review the plan, the social worker “left the room and called the police. Without a court order they took custody of Annie, immediately claiming that she was suffering from illness or injury – a patently false claim,” HSLDA said.
While the hospital administered the unauthorized Hepatitis B shot for the newborn, the police “made Jodi Ferris get up out of her hospital bed and escorted her to the entrance – they were expelling her from the hospital because she had not signed the ‘safety plan,’” HSLDA reported.
Her husband was at the entrance, and both were escorted off the grounds – without their child. HSLDA reported the hospital allowed Jodi to return every few hours overnight to nurse the baby, so she was forced to spend the night in a car in a nearby parking lot.
“You read that right. They kicked this mother out of the hospital, and in order to be close enough to feed her child, she had to sleep in the car,” HSLDA said.
When the issue went before a judge the next morning, the judge returned the child to the parents.
“It is not a crime to ask questions about the well-being of your child. It is not a crime to ask for testing to ensure that a procedure is needed before it is done. It is not a crime to be a protective mom,” HSLDA’s report said.
“It is a moral offense of the highest order to kick a mother out of a hospital and to seize her child on the day of her birth simply because a mom wanted to have her husband read a legal document before she signed.”
The HSLDA said it took on the case because of the significant parental-rights issues involved.
“We are tired of seeing the erosion of parental rights in virtually every area of life,” Farris said. “Parental rights in medical cases have an impact on broader parental rights, including education decisions. And the plain fact is this: If we don’t fight for parental rights, it is probable that our rights will be eroded bit by bit until there is nothing that remains.”
A special campaign has been assembled by HSLDA to fund the court case, since the organization will not bill its homeschooling constituents for such a case."



*The posts made in this blog are of our opinion only* Without Prejudice UCC 1-207

School paperwork failure costs mom custody of son

Moved into social services agency over 'unexcused' absences

The fact that a New York school district simply delayed processing the paperwork for a mother who decided to homeschool her son cost the mother custody – at least temporarily – of her son, according to a new report.
The Home School Legal Defense Association reports that what should have been no more than a simple misunderstanding or paperwork mixup resulted in the child being taken into custody by social services agencies.
The organization which works worldwide to promote the rights of parents and students and to advocate for homeschooling said it was using pseudonyms, Sherry and Carson Fleming, to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

The report posted online said the conflict developed in the Albany school district and escalated unchecked until the New York Department of Children, Youth, and Families removed the child, Carson, from the family home.

Find out why classes seem so different these days, in “The Harsh Truth About Public Schools”

“One of the problems that homeschoolers face in New York is that school districts are very quick to involve DCYF when there is even a minor dispute over paperwork,” said Darren Jones, a litigation attorney for the HSLDA who worked on the case.

The case developed after Fleming submitted to the district her notice of intent and began homeschooling Carson at the start of the 2011-2012 year. As it’s normal for school districts to allow weeks to pass before they process such paperwork, it’s not unusual for schools to total up weeks’ worth of unexcused absences, the HSLDA said.

“While Ms. Fleming waited for the school to review her information, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) received an anonymous accusation, presumably from a schoolteacher, that Carson had unexcused absences from school. Blaming Ms. Fleming for refusing to cooperate with school officials, DCYF charged her with educational neglect. At her hearing, the judge, unfamiliar with New York’s homeschooling laws, refused to recognize that Ms. Fleming was in compliance with the law and ordered that Carson attend public school. But after Ms. Fleming visited the school officials the next day, they approved her homeschool and informed the court,” the organization reported.

simply refused and ordered that because Carson was not enrolled in the public However, the trials were just beginning, because while Fleming believed the neglect charges would be dropped with the approval of her actions, the judge school he must be removed from his mother and put into a foster home.

The HSLDA said it was able to sort out the information and obtain from the DCYF a dismissal of the charges, allowing Carson to return home.

It was just days ago when WND reported that position was exactly what a politician has begun advocating.
The issue arose after Lotta Edholm, a prominent leader of Sweden’s liberal party, opined in an article in Aftonbladet, a Swedish newspaper, that the nation’s social service laws should be changed to encourage social workers to take children away from homeschooling families.
“That the deputy minister of social affairs, Maria Larsson … should take an initiative to change the social services act so that the social authorities can intervene when children are kept away from school by their parents,” she wrote on her blog.
“A country that does not permit home education is not really a free country,” noted Michael Donnelly, director of international affairs for the HSLDA.
Donnelly, who has worked closely in support of homeschooling families in a number of nations where they are being persecuted, said the change in Sweden is a turn for the worse.

http://www.wnd.com/2012/01/school-paperwork-failure-costs-mom-custody-of-son/



*The posts made in this blog are of our opinion only* Without Prejudice UCC 1-207