The issue of whether state officials must obtain permission before inspecting a home school resurfaced this week in North Carolina, after Lt. Gov. Dan Forest issued a press release informing the state’s 53,000 home-school families that they do not need to comply with the state’s home inspections, citing Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches.
Since schooling is required for children between the ages of 6 through 16, North Carolina home school inspectors have the right to visit the documented location of a home school annually to ensure that the school exists. Nothing in the law stipulates the visit must be without warning to the home-schooling family.
During a home inspection, state officials also are supposed to inspect records that home-schooling families are required to keep, such as standardized test results, immunization records and attendance records.
Forest, whose wife Alice has home-schooled the couple’s four children for the past 15 years, issued a press release on Monday saying “This policy is intrusive, unnecessary, and has the potential to infringe on the constitutionally-protected privacy rights of tens of thousands of North Carolina home-school families.”
He also reminded home-school families that they have the right to refuse warrantless entry by government officials without probable cause, citing the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 20 of the North Carolina Constitution.
Home school inspections have not been conducted in the state since the 1980s, when fewer than 1,000 students were home-schooled. Currently more than 100,000 students in the state are home-schooled.
“Home-school families should follow the law relating to the keeping of records and their lawful inspection,” Forest said, “but should not be compelled to let any government official into their house. It is not necessary and people should reject it.”
Forest added that he intends to work with the state senate to introduce legislation in the next session of the general assembly to clarify when, where and how the Division of Non-Public Education may inspect home-school records under the law without doing so in people’s homes.
But David Mills, the director of North Carolina’s Division of Non-Public Education Director, said that the goal with the warrantless searches “was to cause less inconvenience and give greater credibility to North Carolina home-schoolers.”
In a statement, Mills explained that inspecting homes is “not anything new,” and said that he himself has “visited home schools by the thousands during my first five years in the office of Non-Public Education.”
Mills also explained that in the 1970s the state only had a few hundred home schools, but now has more than 57,000 home schools on record.
“We couldn’t go out and see 57,000 home schools each year,” he said, adding that having several home school educators come to church basements to present their immunization, attendance and standardized test records made it possible to provide some oversight to home-schoolers in the state.
Mills stressed that the visits would only take about 30 minutes and he would give advance notice of his site visits.
Lending credibility and protecting home-schooled children
North Carolinians for Home Education (NCHE) agreed with Mills that the proposal to conduct warrantless inspections of residences or other places such as church basements where children are home-schooled was lawful.
“It is my view that DNPE is carrying out their duty to [North Carolina] citizens in inspecting records. It is the law that [North Carolina] home-schoolers keep certain records, and it is the duty of DNPE officials to testify to their veracity,” said Kevin McClain, president of NCHE.
“This activity is characteristic of good governance. Moreover, it serves an important public function. It allows the state to mediate between me, a person who favors home education, and my neighbors, some of who [sic] find the practice questionable. By inspecting my records and verifying their existence, DNPE officials can confirm the lawfulness of my family’s educational activity.”
McClain said that while a person has the right to refuse entry to inspectors, he said Forest’s depiction of the inspections were not accurate.
“Characterization of the inspection as ’searches’ and ‘warrantless entry by government officials’ of a residence is factually incorrect. The scheduling of a visit to a [North Carolina] home school by a DNPE official is not a ‘search’ of a home,” McClain said.
“Because of [Fourth] Amendment rights, for those who are uncomfortable having a DNPE official in their home, the inspection could even be held at the front door. But to characterize the activity as ‘intrusive’ is false…”
Many in favor of the surprise inspections argued that scheduling an inspection could allow for someone to create a home school where one had not previously existed.
In an opinion piece for News-Record.com, Doug Clark wrote that while almost all home schools operate lawfully, he said “there may be a very few instances where a home school decision is made for the purpose of isolating children from any outsiders who might suspect from the children’s appearance or behavior that something is wrong in the home.”
He said Forest’s emphasis that the warrantless searches were indicative of an intrusive government that was intent on violating families’ privacy rights was uncalled for given that the “real reason for a visit would be simply to make sure that all is well with children’s education.”
“Making the Division of Non-Public Education out to be some kind of enemy of freedom does it a disservice,” Clark wrote. “Its oversight is hardly so onerous as to warrant such a negative characterization.”
“Why wouldn’t home-school parents agree to a visit, anyway? What’s to hide? One would hope nothing. But, where relatives or neighbors suspect that ‘home school’ decisions may in reality cover a parent’s intent to hide or isolate a child from outside contact, they should call authorities. There may be probable cause to inspect […] with a warrant [. . .] for the children’s welfare.”
Power of public pressure
Despite receiving positive feedback from some in the community, Mills sent out a letter shortly after Forest released his press release, saying that the DNPE does not plan to conduct any more unscheduled home school visits.
He apologized to home-school families who may have misunderstood the intent of the searches, and said that he had opted to not conduct home visits before Forest issued his statements, citing parents reactions as the reason for the reverse decision.
The NCHE website also added a statement saying that if a home school operator was not comfortable with home visits, they have the right to refuse the visit under the Fourth Amendment, so long as they present all necessary records to the DNPE.
Mills and Forest also issued a joint statement saying that no home school site visits are planned and that the DNPE would request all records be submitted for review electronically via email or at a meeting.