JESSICA KOLDITZ / Scroll
Children at local Kennedy Elementary School mill around after school lets out Friday, Feb. 17. School attendance is the most-used form of keeping track of children in Idaho. Many who are home schooled slip between the cracks and are not documented by the state because law does not require home schools to initiate contact with districts.

Idaho charged with educational neglect

Recent BSU report shows ‘missing children’

Ashley Killpack KIL05005@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

One out of every 15 children living in Idaho is missing from government education records, according to a report released by Boise State University.

The report said the state has no idea whether 14,000 Idaho school children are being educated.

How has such an oversight occurred?

Whenever children are registered to attend a private or public school in Idaho, a record of their registration and attendance is sent to the state. Idaho, however, is one of six states that do not require the registration of home-schooled children.

In fact, no state system or department is in place to keep track of school children who are not enrolled in private or public school.

A good deal of schools in Idaho reported using word of mouth to keep track of the children in the area.

“Usually, this being a rural area, most teachers live around here and know what is going on,” said Janet Andersen, a secretary at Central Elementary School in Madison County. “If a student registers for school one year and does not register the next, we just withdraw their file and store it until another school requests it.”

The report faults the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and the Idaho Department of Education for the neglect of these children because neither department has taken the initiative to track missing students. As a result, 6.5 percent of Idaho school children have slipped below the radar of both departments.

Furthermore, Idaho has given parents full reign in the home-schooling process. Idaho code 33-202 only requires that parents “shall cause the child to be instructed in subjects commonly and usually taught in the public schools.” So the state has no control over the educational quality of home schooling.

“It would make sense to have some declaration,” said Karen Roberts, a resident of Chubbuck, Idaho. “The first time I did home schooling I didn’t have to do anything. I just didn’t send my kids to school and nobody said anything about it.”

School districts, when contacted for the study, said they felt powerless in the battle against educational neglect.

“District officials expressed frustration with their inability to track students when they disappear from their enrollments,” according to the report. “Several offered home education as an explanation for some of the missing children, but others implied that some parents may be using home schooling as a shield to prevent investigation of their children’s absence.”

The report also provided advice for protecting the education of Idaho children. Some of the suggestions were to set up standard tests for home-schooled students and to require families to report their decision to home school to the state.