Prayers for this family. If they can do it to this family, they can do it to any of us. Stick it to us at the expense of our children. The authorities detest home schoolers. Something needs to be done to protect the rights of good parents.
That's true, but let's just step back a minute... This doesn't seem to have much to do with homeschooling. A babysitter notices that the room of one kid, the adopted kid in the family, is a wreck, and stinks of piss. She tells the kids biological mother, who understandably calls the Gov't. The Gov't comes by to check it out, and the Dad won't let them.
Is it totally unreasonable for the government to assume that there is abuse going on?
Are you suggesting that child services should have ignored the complaint?
That you are immediately jumping on the "they hate us 'cuz we home school" as the reason for this is odd to me. There is nothing in the email or anything else that we've been told that suggests the means by which they educate their kids is even part of the issue.
What part of this am I missing?
"Good" being the operative word here. I know that homeschoolers are in the line of fire in California and in some other states as well, and perhaps it is standard procedure in some areas to use CPS as a back door avenue of attack on homeschooling, an attitude that could understandably make homeschooling parents very defensive. The government doesn't like people it can't track easily. Neither does private enterprise, for that matter.
There is a lot of variation in method and procedure from state to state as far as CPS goes. I have had to work with them in several states, and am sometimes amazed at the variance. Speaking for the laws here though, and as someone who is in the role of having to make decisions about removing children from their homes, I can tell you that I personally NEVER make that determination lightly, and do whatever possible to avoid it. The most common practice, if the family is discovered to have real issues with making their chidren a priority and providing a safe environment for them, is to open a PS case and try and help the family (usually a single mother) to deal with the problem that had CPS called in the first place. If a family consistently refuses to deal with these matters, then it is possible that the children would be removed.
Most often when children are removed from a home, we are not dealing with "good" parents, in the traditional sense of the word. Our typical client is a single mother, often with serious alcohol or drug abuse problems, typically not working and often knowingly exposing their children to sex offenders. These are people who leave their children with anyone...or with no one at all, or those who allow their children to be subjected to serious physical abuse at the hands of the "boyfriend" or mate of the week, and then refuse to protect the child even after less restrictive intervention is attempted. And with few exceptions, when a child is removed from the home, it is always the goal to reunite the family as quickly as possible.
A note about homeschooling and CPS: there is home schooling, and there is "home avoiding schooling." The former involves loving and committed parents who are trying to provide the best education possible for their children and maintain their own God-given authority over what their children are exposed to. The latter is the family that uses "homeschooling" as a means of continuing in an irresponsible lifestyle and there is very little intentional education occurring. As long as they register their kids as homeschoolers they can let them lay up in bed all day and no one will be any the wiser....and they have the added benefit of knowing that their children won't be going off to school and exposing family secrets (like the meth lab in the shed or the 7 year olds "relationship" with her "uncle" who is paying the bills) to prying eyes.