Police Pick-Up Power?
    Home schoolers and other concerned parents have been fighting daytime curfews all across America. Massachusetts Governor Paul Celucci filed a bill which would effectively give police the power to round up any child found in a public place during public school hours. House Bill 4188, as originally drafted, said, “A police officer, during the course of duty, may apprehend and take to school without a warrant any truant or absentee found wandering in the streets or public places of the city or town in which the police officer is employed or to which the police officer is assigned.”
    Home School Legal Defense Association promptly contacted the Massachusetts Homeschool Organization of Parent Educators, Massachusetts Home Learning Association, and American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Under current law, truant officers have the power to apprehend children found wandering in the streets, but truant officers are expected to know which children are absent without excuse and which are not. Existing law requires this of them. Police officers have no way of knowing which children are truant and which are not.
    To draw attention to this problem, HSLDA wrote a letter to the members of the Joint Committee on Education, Arts and Humanities. We suggested that police officers should not be able to pick up children unless those children have been identified as truant by the local school district. We have no objection to police officers enforcing the compulsory attendance laws against children who are enrolled in the public schools but are absent without excuse.
    When the governor testified before the joint committee in favor of his bill, committee chairman Representative Harold Lane, Jr., questioned him on this issue: Would the governor have any objection to requiring police officers to work from a list of children who were absent without excuse? The governor indicated that this would satisfy his objectives in proposing the bill.
    The committee has yet to act on this legislation, but HSLDA will be working closely with each representative and senator on the committee to make sure our liberties are properly protected. We encourage all Massachusetts home schoolers to stay alert to these and other legislative issues.