LOGAN COUNTY, KY—Does a district court judge have the authority to order a home school parent to send a child back to the public school without a hearing?

A mother from Logan County will have an opportunity on Monday to tell a circuit court judge in Russellville why she failed to comply with a lower court order to stop educating her daughter at home and to return the daughter to public school.

On Dec. 6, lawyers from the Home School Legal Defense Association, in Purcellville, Virginia, persuaded Circuit Court Judge Tyler Gill in Russellville to freeze, or “stay” a warrant for the mother’s arrest until a hearing could be held. The mother will then have an opportunity to respond to the charge that she is in contempt of the lower court for failing to return her child to the public school.

The mother filed the legally required notice of intent to home school with Logan County High School. But school officials decided to pursue truancy charges for the school days between the time the daughter was withdrawn from school and the time the school says it received the notice of intent from the mother.

At the arraignment on the truancy charge, Logan County District Court Judge Sue Carol Browning ordered the daughter to return to the public high school. But because of the daughter’s persistent headaches, the mother failed to obey the court order. When Judge Browning learned that the mother had not enrolled the child in public school as ordered, she considered the mother to be in contempt of the order and issued a warrant for her arrest.

The warrant has been suspended until Monday, Dec. 11, when Judge Tyler Gill of the 7th Judicial Circuit will hold a hearing on the mother’s situation.

Judge Gill will decide then whether the warrant was justified, and whether the juvenile judge had the authority to order the child to public school. Depending on the outcome, the mother may still face jail time.

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