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The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
The legislative committee for the Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (TCJFCJ) prepared an email to be sent to lawmakers prior to a homeschooling freedom bill being heard in the House Education Administration Committee last week hoping to kill the conservative piece of legislation.
Committee Chair William Slater (R-Gallatin-District 35) referred to the email, taken from correspondence he said he received from Sumner County Juvenile Court Judge David Howard from Slater’s district.
Upon Slater’s reading of an excerpt insinuating that homeschool parents might abuse their children without any state oversight, the bill failed after all five Republicans on the committee voted against it.
The Tennessee Conservative contacted judges on the executive committee of the TCJFCJ to ask if they agreed with the opposition of the FREE Act that the council espoused.
Of the ten judges, we have received only one reply thus far, that of Wayne County Judge James Ross. Ross’s assistant, Austin Wilson conveyed our question to Ross who stated that because he is not the president of the conference, “he is not going to comment on this.”
Ross is one of six judges listed as a director of the council’s executive committee.
The TCJFCJ was created by the Tennessee General Assembly through legislation that went into effect July 1st, 1982.
Membership is open to any Tennessee judge, judge-elect, magistrate, judge pro tem, or former judge of any Tennessee juvenile court, who in turn elect the organization’s executive committee.
The makeup of the current governing board of ten is as follows:
President – Hon. Rob Philyaw
Vice-president – Hon. Sheila Calloway
Treasurer – Hon. Katerina Moore
Directors – Hon. Andy Brigham, Hon. Christy Little, Hon. Sharon Guffee, Hon. John Whitworth, Hon. James Ross, Hon. Dwight Stokes, and Hon. Lane Wolfenbarger.
Calloway also serves on the Child Welfare and Juvenile Law Advisory Committee of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
Shared by Free YOUR Children, an email from Stewart County Juvenile Court Judge Andy Brigham shows what appears to be the full statement of the council.
“The Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recognizes parental choices in student education. What I say should not be taken as an indictment of Tennessee’s home school programs. Based upon the verbiage of this bill, however, I have been asked to contact you about our concerns concerning the lack of educational oversight over this particular group of home schooled students under this very specific law. It fundamentally sets these students apart from every other student – including other home school students – when it comes to compulsory attendance and educational curriculum. In some respects, it creates a situation where a parent and child do not have to do anything and no one can say anything about it. It could potentially create a loophole for some, rather unscrupulous, parents to abuse Tennessee’s educational system.
This potential loophole also conceals another, more troubling, issue. We believe that this will only enhance the possibilities of unreported child abuse or neglect. As the Covid pandemic taught us, most abuse and neglect referrals come from schools, and from people who have routine interaction with children. For some kids, school is the protective element in their lives. When all oversight is removed, how do we work to protect children? In our greatest fears, unscrupulous parents, when threatened with the notions of mandatory reporting of abuse, would remove a child from school and place them under the umbrella provided by this bill so as to avoid detection. This cannot be the bill’s intent, but it’s certainly and unintended consequence.“
“We would urge you to consider these matters when discussing this bill in committee,” wrote Brigham in closing.
Had it passed, the pro-homeschooling bill, endorsed by both state and national homeschooling advocates, would have made Tennessee the 14th state to enact such legislation as Wyoming passed a similar bill this year, becoming the most recent of 13 states to do so.
House Bill 0552 (HB0552) sponsored by Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill-District 92) would not have repealed any current regulations regarding homeschooling in Tennessee.
Instead, the “Family Right to Educational Emancipation Act” or FREE Act” would have created a new independent category for homeschooling that would have made home school parents exempt from compulsory school attendance while also keeping homeschool families who might have chosen it free of any data collection, reporting, or assessment requirements.
According to Warner, this new option would have kept homeschool families from participating in any state program like a future expansion of school vouchers that would include homeschool families or the current TSSAA rules that allow homeschool students to participate in sports at their local public schools.
As Warner pointed out in the committee meeting, abused and neglected children are also found attending public and private schools. “We have bad actors everywhere,” stated Warner.
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
2 Responses
First of all, since when do we best legislate when we legislate for the ill’s of society? We should be legislating for freedom and liberty with the understanding that there will be some ‘breaking bad’ in our society, thus the reason we judges to administer punishment. But, the strange thing is that some of these leftist judges simply do nothing when the rotten eggs of society come before them in their court, yet they’d punish those of us who are responsible, law abiding citizens in pursuit of our liberties and freedoms. Just another saga in the state of our American justice system.
The legislative committee for the Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (TCJFCJ), IMHO, are in the service of lucifer, against God’s freedom.