Dear Home School Solutions Friends,

If you haven't already, be sure to check this website: www.parentalrights.org.

There's currently a big threat to our rights as parents, home schoolers or otherwise, looming on the horizon. The UN International Rights of the Child Treaty threatens to usurp the Constitution and Supreme Court as the final legal authorities in our country when it comes to raising our children. While the treaty sounds good on the surface (providing for the education and well-being of children around the world), its legal scope could affect not only how you discipline or educate your child, but also how you pass on your religious heritage among other things.

Parental rights are already under attack in our country, as evidenced in the article pasted below. Thankfully, under current law, though our rights may be violated, we maintain the right to appeal or file suit within our own judicial system. Imagine how much more frightening it would be to raise our children if instead, when our rights are violated, we must submit to the decisions of an international court. Those decisions are enforceable by international peace keepers.

If that all sounds a little too Orwellian to you, consider how insane the idea of legalizing same sex marriage would have seemed to our great-grandparents. Experts on the International Rights of the Child Treaty say we have ten years or fewer to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing our parental rights under the sovereign rule of our own Constitution.

Think the experts are wrong? What if they're right? Visit www.parentalrights.org and get informed. What you don't know CAN hurt you... or your children or grandchildren.

I hope our kids, when they're raising their own children, don't ask us why we didn't do something to stop the UN's invasion on our rights as American parents.

Oh, and remember to find out which presidential candidates are for or against the treaty. How you vote in 2008 will make a difference.

Happy Home Schooling,
Mrs. Sherry

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Parents should have say
Our position: Ocoee schools shouldn't have refused to release 2,000 kids during a storm.
August 31, 2007
Orlando Sentinel Newspaper
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It's obvious that schools are responsible for the safety of children, but that responsibility ends where the responsibilities and rights of parents begin.

Administrators at two Orange County schools forgot that last Friday when they refused to release children to their parents during a long, nasty lightning storm. Parents at Ocoee Elementary and Ocoee Middle schools waited as long as 41/2 hours before school officials deemed it was safe to release their children.

Parents are justifiably outraged. Even with the severe lightning hazard, administrators should have figured out a way to release the 2,000 kids to their parents. The principals should have had a clearer policy to follow.

The district is reviewing its procedure and for now will require schools to release kids to their parents unless a public-safety agency orders otherwise. For example, if the police order a school locked down because an escaped killer is in the neighborhood, parents should understand they're not going to get their kids.

We understand the dangers last Friday and the decision principals faced. Central Florida is the lightning capital of the nation, and Friday's storms spawned more than 1,000 lightning strikes between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Schools follow national safety standards that say no one should go outside until 30 minutes after the last lightning flash or thunderclap. It's good that principals were concerned and took steps to protect children.

But Orange County needs to make it clear to principals that parents should have the final say.