BBM for focus
I think the bigger issue is what kind of
formal court ordered social services monitoring occurs after a conviction for child abuse?
Were social workers visiting the home during Sarah's probation year? Or did Sarah just visit her probation officer at an office?
Identifying/ attacking/ limiting homeschooling as the result of the outcome of the abuse/ neglect problem won't solve the problem of abusive families hiding behind homeschooling, IMO.
Homeschooling has a very active and well funded legal lobby-- HSLDA. Members are passionate about parental rights to determine their child's education, as well as passionate about keeping the option of homeschooling legal everywhere. (We can thank the Amish community for advocating for many of our modern homeschooling laws.)
https://hslda.org/
Simply engaging in homeschooling is not reason enough for social services to be involved-- but I could argue that a substantiated charge of abuse, followed by abrupt withdrawal of kids 8 weeks before the end of the school year, IS reason enough for formal supervision of the kids in the home, and ensuring all of their needs are being met. (And that includes schooling.)
I sincerely doubt that we will ever have an "enforcement" arm of truancy (law enforcement officers) in any state that are charged with investigating and finding un-registered homeschooling families, to bring charges (educational neglect-- how does one define that with so many homeschooling philosophies). I can't see any state having the fortitude or budget to do something like that to their citizens. Most people in America would not stand for that level of intrusiveness on parental rights to determine their children's schooling needs. Homeschooling is legal-- even if not every family has registered "properly".
It's frustrating to see abusive families hiding behind homeschooling-- but homeschooling laws are not the problem. Proper identification of abuse, neglect, and
subsequent monitoring of these families is the problem we face, IMO.