Brittney Delpey: Mother of Homeschooled Child Gets Put in Jail for 6 Months for Paperwork Mistake

      The author is Daniel Jennings who works for Off the Grid News. The author attempts to remain unbiased but believes the sentence was unneeded. The mother and her child live in Columbus Ohio. This article was written October 20th, 2016, regarding the event that started September 2015 and is ongoing. This is meant for the public to bring awareness to the undeserved punishment and probably for other homeschooled children so their parents know to be cautious.
     
      A mother pulled her son out of public school to do homeschool instead and her son did much better in that type of learning environment. She didn't have much knowledge on the homeschooling process and had a lot of help from the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). She was told that she could turn in the paperwork anytime and that there wasn't a deadline. She taught her son year-round so it never felt like there was a start to school. She turned in her paper work in September 2015, a month after public school started. The school district then accepted to paper work. Later on she was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor in criminal court. They stated she missed the deadline and her son technically missed 6 weeks of school. She would then be sentenced with 6 months in jail for a small mistake with the paper work deadline. The HSLDA and the school district stood by her and she used the evidence that her son was in the 97% percentile for standardized tests and she's been teaching him year round. They did uplift the jail charges but her and her son are now required to go to truancy classes. I believe this wasn't a fair trial because the court didn't have enough evidence to convict her but they refused to look at the evidence that it was just a small paperwork mistake.




Prior Knowledge: I didn't have any prior knowledge about this case before this article. I think its absurd that they punished her even when she had support and her child's outstanding test grades.

http://www.offthegridnews.com/current-events/homeschool-mom-sentenced-to-6-months-in-jail-for-minor-paperwork-mistake/