Libertarian Party of Georgia
July 16, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: David Chastain
Phone: 770-630-8294

ATLANTA - As the duly elected Chief Executive of Georgia, it is Governor Sonny Purdue's responsibility to execute the laws of Georgia through the various state executive agencies. Today, negative consequences of Georgia 's ill-conceived Compulsory Education Laws are playing out in Sonny's backyard near Bonaire.

The State of Georgia , through its school district in Houston County, has used its police power to arrest a young mother for asserting her parental rights in deciding what is best for her young autistic son. Her boy's pediatrician is deemed inferior to the State in diagnosing illnesses and prescribing the therapies that are in the best interest of his seven year old patient. Instead, Houston County school district employees are adding medical diagnostics to their list of school services.

As everyone knows, long-term medical absences from school are excused with a “note from your doctor.” Yet, when the Loiaconos presented medical forms, signed by their son’s pediatrician, explaining the medical conditions that require an extended absence, the Houston County School District refused to acknowledge the doctor’s diagnosis and withheld the appropriate services outlined and funded under state and federal regulations. These medical conditions, according to the Loiaconos, were the result of physical and mental abuse suffered by their son while under supervision of Houston District employees.

Asked to declare herself a home school teacher, Betsy refused, as her actions conformed to the advise of a medical professional. Ms. Loiacono does not want to home school. She actually prefers public school. Just the same, she was arrested, booked and held briefly in a jail cell until her bond was posted. Her attorney, Hatcher Graham, has filed her Not Guilty plea and the young mother is scheduled for criminal trial on October 1st.

The irony of the Loiacono case is that Betsy is a volunteer advocate for children with special needs, trained under the supervision of the State of Georgia . Middle Georgia parents seek Betsy's free representation for guidance in the maze of state and federal regulations relating to special education.

For Libertarians, the codified notion that the State is superior to the parent is abhorrent and flies in the face of basic human rights. How can families flourish without freedom? And where no one is surprised to hear of third world dictatorships imposing themselves on families, the average American fails to realize that the state's power to control education and medicine carries with it the power to control the family.

Three parents have already been arrested, jailed, and will stand trial in Georgia . The Loiaconos and their supporters are asking Georgia's elected leaders to support Georgia ’s children by insuring accountability throughout Georgia’s State schools.

So, if the nanny state of Georgia is ultimately your child's mommy, what does that make Governor Sonny Purdue?
Georgia LP executive director, David Chastain, says, "It's a shame Georgians know so little of the plight of volunteer mom Betsy Loiacano and way too much of California's party girl, Paris Hilton."

Posted on Fri, Jul. 13, 2007
Dispute with BOE heading to trial
By Becky Purser

LINK

A Warner Robins mother who was arrested in a dispute with the Houston County school board about the education of her 7-year-old autistic child is seeking her day in court.
Betsy Loiacono has been free on a $1,100 bond since surrendering to the sheriff's department May 18 after learning the Board of Education had obtained an arrest warrant for her on the misdemeanor charge of failure to comply with the state's school attendance law.

Hatcher Graham, her Warner Robins attorney, said Thursday he has entered a not guilty plea and the case has tentatively been placed on the October trial calendar in Houston County State Court.

Graham said he's seeking a jury trial.

Loiacono and school officials were unable to reach an agreement on an individual education plan to attempt to integrate the child back into the school system, Graham said.

The school system's plan for the child called for a very quick integration back to school in a matter of three days, the attorney said. It also called for a paraprofessional to come to the home and work with the child.

The child's doctor strenuously objected to this plan, Graham said. The mother offered an alternative, four- to six-week plan that would include home visits from behavioral scientists and special education teachers and a gradual reintroduction to school, Graham said.

The child also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from a paraprofessional shaking him on a school bus two years ago, Graham said.

Loiacono could resolve the matter by simply home-schooling the child but then she would not be eligible for federal funding to which she's entitled under the federal disabilities law for the specialized instruction, her attorney said.

Also, the mother's desire for her son is for him to return to school, Graham said.

Jeff Grube, the school board attorney, could not be reached immediately for comment.

To contact writer Becky Purser, call 923-3109, extension 243.

Schooling Austen
Should an autistic student be tutored at home by the public school system?
By Josh Clark
LINK

Over the course of the past year, Betsy Loiacono has come to understand the bitterness of irony. The Warner Robbins, Ga. mother of four serves as regional director for Educate America! a non-profit group dedicated to helping the families of special needs students navigate the murky depths of the American public school system. Serving as an advocate for kids with special needs, she has helped scores of them get a proper education.

All of Loiacono’s work is pro bono; she says she’s never charged a dime for her services. She serves as legalese translator, mediator and, at times, watchdog. Essentially, she ensures that children with special needs don’t fall through the cracks of school systems designed generally without them in mind.

And yet, now that her own child needs her help, Loiacono is finding herself stymied.

Her son, Austen, who is autistic, is afraid to return to his school, Shirley Hills Elementary, “Home of the Mustangs,” after an encounter with a school employee, wherein he was “shaken lightly” for a period of about 10 minutes, according to a report by an independent contractor who was in the classroom at the time.

Loiacono says that she was not informed of the incident, and may not have ever known it happened had it not been for Austen’s change in behavior.

After the shaking incident, she says, “Things definitely got worse.”

Austen, age 7, had grown more withdrawn, communicating less and less with his family, and was not forthcoming with details of the incident. She says she finally uncovered the encounter when Austen came home from school one day with bruises on him, some time after the shaking incident. Where he got them is still a mystery.

“To this day I don’t know (where they came from),” says Loiacono. “He didn’t leave home with those bruises.”

After she discovered the bruises, Loiacono says she requested all documents the school had pertaining to her son and took him to see his doctor.

Loiacono says her son’s physician, whose name she has withheld, diagnosed Austen with post-traumatic stress disorder. This mental stress syndrome has been made famous by soldiers returning from the battlefield, but it can also be experienced by anyone who undergoes a terrible shock.

Based on Austen’s increasingly withdrawn behavior, as well as the bruises, the shaking incident and another incident on the school bus that was videotaped and shows Austen being “belittled and degraded,” Loiacono says, the doctor determined that he would not benefit from being reintroduced to the school for some time; indeed, that the school environment in which he suffered the trauma could be dangerous to the child’s well-being. What’s more, when he did return to school, suggested the physician, it would have to be gradually, over a long period of time.

Austen’s doctor drew up a medical excuse for Betsy to give to the school.

Georgia law grants homebound status to students who are expected, for medical reasons, to remain home from school for more than 10 consecutive days. By Houston County’s own guidelines, children who are homebound are eligible to receive visits and tutoring to keep up with their classmates. This is exactly what Loiacono sought.

But the wording in the Georgia laws leave it up to the local school district to decide whether to grant homebound status. And, although Austen’s physician had determined that he was suffering from mental trauma, the Houston County School Board chose not to grant the boy homebound status.

Under arrest

Soon, truancy notices began to trickle into the Loiacono mailbox, ultimately resulting in a probable cause hearing in November of 2006. The judge determined Loiacono was not in violation of truancy laws.

Armed with the judge’s ruling, the physician’s advice and a fearful son at home, Loiacono resolved to create a plan with the school to serve as a framework for Austen’s eventual return to the classroom. Loiacono says she and the school successfully came to an arrangement, wherein Austen would keep up with his classmates by doing the work from home.

But then, the Houston County School District approached Loiacono with a request for her to sign a form that stated she agreed to withdraw Austen from school and to home-school him herself. “I was very confused,” she says, “because I had never intended to home-school him.”

Betsy says she considers Austen’s right to a public education from the state to be like that of every other child. By signing such a form, she would be allowing the Houston County School District “to wash their hands of any obligation to provide him with an education.”

At a May 16 hearing, the judge reviewing the case concerning Austen’s absences decided that she needed more time to peruse the facts, and issued a continuance, postponing the hearing until October.

That same day, however, the sheriff’s office informed the Loiaconos that the school board had gotten a warrant for Betsy’s arrest on violation of truancy laws.

She turned herself in and, with the help of a bondsman, made the $1,100 bail. She says she was in jail for a sum total of around five minutes, but that “it was the most humiliating experience of my life.”

“I’m not giving up”

The trip to jail, however, has only strengthened Betsy Loiacono’s resolve.

“I know other families have gone through this sort of thing and that other school boards around the state have just worn them down until they did what the school board wanted them to do,” Loiacono says. “I understand what they went through, but I’m not giving up.”

Loiacono’s saga has attracted the attention of David Chastain, executive director of the Georgia Libertarian Party.

Chastain ran for state school superintendent in 2006, and what’s more, is the father of a 19 year-old son with attention deficit disorder who recently graduated from Georgia’s public school system. “The idea is that the government provides a free alternative to private school, but you also have compulsory attendance that says if you don’t go to a private school, you have to go to a government school,” he says. “This inevitably leads to a government monopoly.”

In Chastain’s opinion, this monopoly—especially in the case of families like the Loiaconos who cannot afford to send their kids to private schools—takes away a parent’s power to decide what’s best for their child and gives that power to the school system.

“I really think [the school system] didn’t want to provide homebound services because it was too expensive,” says Chastain.

The Houston County School Board declined to comment directly on Austen’s case. “We take protecting the privacy of the students in our district seriously,” says Beth McLaughlin, spokesperson for Houston County Schools. The system released a statement to The Sunday Paper saying the school board would “be happy to discuss the specifics of this situation if the parent would give us permission by signing a waiver.”

The statement also included a denial of “any wrong doing in this situation in proposing anything that would do harm
to her child.”

Loiacono thinks her arrest may have been the result of her advocating for parents against the school system: “There have been issues with some school board members in the past when they were administrators,” she says. “I can only think it’s retaliation.” Still, Loiacono says she is “baffled” by the lengths to which the board has gone.

So, on Aug. 6, the first day of the new school year, the students of Shirley Hills Elementary filled the halls once again, with one glaring exception.

Loiacono says she will not give up because this is not just about her son.

“It’s a civil rights issue,” she says. “I’m not going to let these kids sit in the back of the bus any longer.”

Learn more about Betsy Loiacono’s ordeal at www.betsyloiacono.com

David Chastain is the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Georgia and the 2006 LP candidate for Georgia State School Superintendent. www.LPGeorgia.com

State juvenile Justice Facilities

From another Georgia parent:


Dear Esteemed Legislators of Georgia--

I am writing a letter of deep concern about the situation of Georgia Public Schools and Education. There are many many issues that schools in Georgia are continuously demonstrating no accountability.

I personally know parents who have been retaliated upon because of their child's disability. I personally know teachers who have also been retaliated upon and even have had their career destroyed by administrations of public schools. I know parents who have been coerced by schools and have had child protective services called by the school for no reason whatsoever. We need laws that prevent this from happening and STOP THE HARASSMENT OF GOOD LAW ABIDING CITIZENS WHO HAVE SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN IN GEORGIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. THIS HARASSMENT IS OCCURRING ON THE GENERAL EDUCATION POPULATION AS WELL AND CROSSES ALL LINES, WHITE, BLACK, AND SPECIAL ED CHLDREN.

We also have no laws and no recourse for Teachers that want to do the right thing and be whistleblowers on waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse on children in georgia public schools. Schools call DFACS at will on parents, without merit or just cause and even falsify documents to get the parent or child out of the public school. WE ARE ALL TIRED OF THE INTIMIDATION AND HARASSMENT BY GEORGIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Many of us have even received threat or intimidation letters from school system attorneys. And our Great Teachers cannot even access their own personnel files with constant violations of Georgia Open REcords laws.

We really need a change in Georgia, the only way for that to happen is Universal School Choice and take the power out of the hands of the educrats. Did you know that schools are essentially practicing medicine without a license? They arrest parents who must keep kids home from school because they are ill and and have a medical excuse. Georgia Public schools find every way imagineable to work outside of the law and harass parents. If We cannot have Universal School Choice we need an Act of Congress to fix the mess. We need to take the floor and offer testimony of our experiences in Georgia Public Schools.

It needs to stop-- who in the senate is willing to listen to our stories-- Many of us would like to give testimony at the capitol.. We need an investigation of the Georgia Department of Education and Local School Districts. They are defrauding the public with lies and protectionistic attitudes. Currently there are several court cases you may be interested in concerning even Child Abuse covered up by public schools. I can share court case documents of the case of a parent/teacher of a special ed child that was retaliated upon.

She has been arrested for keeping her autistic son home from school after he was abused and following advice from her Licensed Medical Doctor. It will take everyone working together across party lines to fix Georgia Education and to Expose Abhorrent Corruption at all levels.

Anonymous parent

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