GOOCHLAND COUNTY, VA—A home school mom and her daughter filed a civil rights suit today in Virginia’s eastern district of federal court against the Goochland County School Board, the superintendent and a school board employee.

Terry and Melanie Pollard of Goochland County filed the complaint because the daughter, Melanie, was improperly arrested in January 1999 on truancy charges. Glenda Leabough, an employee of the Goochland County public school superintendent, swore to a petition in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on Jan. 28, 1999, that Melanie, then a minor, was truant from the public school.

Mrs. Pollard, Melanie’s mother, had informed Leabough earlier that the required statutory notice of home education had already been filed. She had delivered the written notice to School Superintendent Warren Stewart’s office a few days before.

Nevertheless, acting in her capacity as an agent of the Goochland County School Board and of Warren Stewart, then the superintendent of Goochland County Public Schools, Glenda Leabough pursued improper legal action against Melanie Pollard.

“It is the right of the parents to direct the education of their children. The defendants in this case trampled on that right,” said David Gordon, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association who is representing the Pollards. “Superintendent Stewart and Glenda Leabough preferred to ignore the Pollard’s constitutionally protected civil rights. Mrs. Pollard followed state law by informing Superintendent Stewart’s office of her intention to home educate Melanie. But the school officials disregarded the law.”

HSLDA is a Virginia-based national home school advocacy organization with 65,000 member families nationwide and 3,500 in Virginia.

Melanie Pollard had been ill in the fall of 1998, so Mrs. Pollard applied for homebound instruction. A physician signed Mrs. Pollard’s application to the school district. When the school district denied Mrs. Pollard’s request for homebound instruction in January 1999, Mrs. Pollard decided to home school Melanie. It is apparent from their prosecution of Melanie that Superintendent Stewart and attendance officer Leabough decided otherwise. The charges against Melanie were ultimately resolved in her favor.