Legal / Legislative Updates

TEXAS

Home inspector becomes "family inspector"

A Home School Legal Defense Association member family in El Paso recently put their house on the market. As is usual before selling a house, the family hired a home inspector to assess their house for any possible dangers or defects. Little did they know that their home inspector would inspect the family as well as the house!

After the home inspection, the inspector apparently called Child Protective Services, stating that the family was unfit to care for their children since they had a slightly leaky furnace, a broken vent pipe, a battery storage system, and a windmill, and they were homeschooling.

When a social worker subsequently showed up on their doorstep, the family, aghast, phoned HSLDA for help.* Senior Counsel Christopher Klicka took the call and spoke with the social worker, explaining that the family’s home did not contain any environmental hazards. The family had fixed their furnace and vent pipe as soon as the inspector alerted them to these problems. Klicka also explained that the battery storage system and windmill were part of an emergency backup system to provide electricity to the family. He explained that this was a reasonable and important system, and he knew of several other families who owned such a system.

Klicka followed up the phone call with a letter explaining that the family was conducting a legal and valid homeschool program, but that homeschooling should not even have been an issue in the investigation, since compulsory attendance laws do not apply in summertime!

In addition, Klicka advised the family to send the social worker several references from individuals in the community who could vouch for the safe condition of their home and their good parenting.

HSLDA has not heard from the social worker since these references were sent, and the family has not referred anyone else to the home inspector.