Just Because We Can Homeschool Doesn't Mean We Should be indifferent to the Plights of Others!!

February 5, 2007

HSLDA--German Homeschooled Child Sentenced to a Child Psychiatry Unit

Dear HSLDA Members and Friends:

The situation for homeschoolers in Germany is getting worse each week.
Just last Thursday, a 17-year-old homeschooled girl was forcibly
removed from her parent's custody by over 15 police officers. The
homeschooled girl has been placed in the child psychiatry unit of the
Nuremberg clinic.

Homeschooling is not legal in Germany. There are over 40 cases
currently in court or being appealed. Christian families are fleeing
Germany for safety in nearby countries. The unconscionable treatment
of sincere and faithful Christian homeschool families is a sad legacy
from Germany's past. Homeschooling was first banned under Adolf
Hitler, and that ban is still enforced today.

Many families who have had their children forcibly taken from their
home each day and taken to government school have since fled Germany,
but there are still some homeschoolers. The latest incident involves
17-year-old Melissa Busekros, the girl sent to the Nuremberg
psychiatry unit. What is being done to this sensitive girl--just to
set an example of enforcing the compulsory schooling at all costs--is
reprehensible and causing trauma to unassuming and lovable Melissa.

In the summer of 2005, when Melissa was 15, she was told she would
have to repeat the seventh grade at the government school because she
was failing math and Latin. She had good grades in the rest of her
classes, so her parents tutored her at home for those two subjects.
When the school officials found out they were angry and then expelled
Melissa, so the family began to homeschool full time.

However, the Youth Welfare office then took the family to court
because they were homeschooling. Then, on Tuesday, January 30, 2007,
social workers and police officers came to the Busekros home and
forcibly took Melissa to the child psychiatric unit where she was
questioned for four hours before she was returned home. Then two days
later, 15 police officers and social workers came to the Busekros home
and took Melissa away from her parents by force and placed her in the
child psychiatric unit.

According to Melissa's father, Hubert Busekros, this treatment was
justified by the psychiatrist's finding two days previously that
Melissa was supposedly developmentally delayed by one year and that
she suffered from school phobia.

Nevertheless, one organization concerned with education expressed
outrage at the treatment of Melissa Busekros.

"The Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit [the Network for Freedom of Education]
condemns this inconsiderate and totally incommensurate behavior on the
part of the officials involved and demands that they give Melissa her
freedom and return her to her family immediately," the group was
quoted in an article on its website. To view the site, as well as more
information and a photograph of the Busekros family, go to
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=3697 .

ACTION

We ask you to take a moment and do two things: First, call or email 
the German Embassy and give them this message:

"We are shocked to hear of the Busekros' homeschooled daughter Melissa 
being removed from the custody of her parents and being placed in a 
child psychiatric unit. This is an outrage that hearkens back to the 
Nazi era. We cannot believe a free nation would put a homeschooled 
child in a psychiatric ward for 'school phobia.' The attack on the 
homeschool families throughout Germany must stop."

The German Embassy can be contacted at: 

Dr. Klaus Scharioth
Ambassador
German Embassy
4645 Reservoir Road NW
Washington, DC, 20007-1998
(202) 298-4000

The embassy can be emailed from its website: 
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=3696 .

Second, pray for the German situation. Only God can change the 
situation for homeschoolers in Germany. Attempts by German 
homeschoolers to organize or to change the laws through court continue 
to be lost, but with God all things are possible. We ask that you cry 
out for the German homeschool families. 

BACKGROUND

German parents have been fighting for the right to homeschool for the
last seven or more years. However, all efforts have failed in the face
of the stubborn German government and their official response that
they cannot "allow a counterculture to exist."

We believe the hope for Germany will be via the international pressure
bearing down so that they abandon their witch-hunt after homeschoolers
and their terrible treatment of these innocent families.

Homeschoolers remaining in Germany are hoping to legalize
homeschooling in one state and thereby make a safe-haven for
homeschoolers. However, the German homeschoolers are so few and the
attacks so intense that it is hard to make any progress in this area.

If you wish to assist the Germans in their struggle for homeschool
freedom, or with many other struggling countries, you can donate to
HSLDA's international fund via the Home School Foundation at
http://www.homeschoolfoundation.org/ .

Your donation will be used to meet the homeschooling needs in Germany.
After meeting the known homeschooling needs in this country, if there
are remaining funds, this money will be transferred to the
Foundation's International Fund to meet homeschooling needs in other
countries.

Thank you for standing with these families and taking a moment to
assist them.

Sincerely,

Christopher J. Klicka
HSLDA Senior Counsel
Director of State and International Relations

French Homeschoolers need your support. NOW!!

Imagine the U.S. Congress was about to pass a law almost eliminating homeschooling in America. You would probably act immediately. That's exactly what the small fledgling French homeschool movement is facing. If you have been blessed to be a homeschooler, and want other children to continue to enjoy those blessings. Please read the letter below and call the French embassy. If you have never contacted a government office before, don't worry. You can just read the script and add a couple of personal comments at the end.

Please act now and help preserve the right of parents to educate their own children.

January 9, 2007

HSLDA--French Homeschoolers Need Your Help Immediately!

Dear HSLDA members and friends:

French homeschoolers are faced with a draconian bill which will be
voted on by parliament within the next few days. We just received word
about this bill today.

Homeschooling is currently allowed in France. However, this bill would
essentially outlaw homeschooling. No parent would be allowed to
homeschool unless they showed that the health or handicap of their
child makes it necessary for him or her to be taught at home.

In addition, if a family could even prove they have a health issue or
some other "serious" reason to justify their homeschool, they would
then have to submit to a home visit by a government official each
year. Also, their curriculum would be either provided by the "National
Center of Correspondence Teaching (CNED)" or by an approved private
correspondence school.

French homeschoolers believe this bill will essentially outlaw
homeschooling as they know it in France. They plead for your help to
stop this restrictive bill.

Homeschoolers in America have successfully stopped similar legislation
in Ireland, the Czech Republic, and South Africa. In both Ireland and
the Czech Republic, the restrictive homeschooling bills had already
passed one house of parliament before we even got involved. Once we
got involved the bills were stopped.

At this point we need you to communicate with the French Embassy in
Washington, D.C. In a few days we will send another email asking you
to communicate directly with the parliament members.

ACTION REQUESTED
Please contact as soon as possible, by phone or email, the French
Embassy and give them this message:

"Amendments 127 & 128, which would virtually outlaw homeschooling, are
being voted on by the French parliament. If passed, this would cause a
travesty. We cannot believe that a free country like France would
outlaw such a basic right as parents choosing to homeschool their
children. Over two million children are being successfully
homeschooled in America. Homeschooling works. We ask that you
immediately convey to the French government our concern and request
that the bill language prohibiting homeschooling in nearly all
circumstances be withdrawn."

Also, explain in a paragraph or two the wonderful success you have had
with homeschooling.

Ambassador Jean-David Levitte
(202) 944-6000
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=3600
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=3601

BACKGROUND
Homeschooling has long been allowed in France. Homeschoolers have to
have regular testing and sometimes they are visited by an official,
but for the most part operate freely. This bill would completely
change that legal atmosphere and make it impossible for 95% of
homeschoolers to operate.

Please take time to help our brothers and sisters in France, where the
homeschool movement is small and they do not have a lot of
organizations or numbers. Nonetheless, there are many sincere parents
who love their children and want to faithfully teach them at home
principles from the Word of God and personally train their children.

If homeschoolers don't try to help, who will? Please take a moment and
contact the French Embassy.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Christopher J. Klicka
HSLDA Senior Counsel