And this, boys and girls, is why we homeschool...

"5th Graders Face Charges for Classroom Sex"

And see, it's not even the "classroom sex" part that throws me. I mean, it's horrifying but not surprising to me that stuff like this happens. I, personally, watched two kids have sex on the back of the school bus when I was in 7th grade. What irks me the most is the closing comment---

""When the kids are at school, they (the parents) relinquish all responsibility to the administration. We can't do anything but look into what goes on at home," Buckley told the Shreveport Times."

We relinquish all responsibility of our children. That's it in a nutshell, isn't it? I don't *want* anyone else taking responsibility for my children.

---PS----

I had to leave this post short due to the morning rush and wanted to come back to it. When I made the above comments, it was not an attack on the school. This, for me, is about the parents. When people talk about their reasons for homeschooling, they often mention problems with the schools...bad experiences they've had with teachers, with administrators, with the system itself... We lack a horror story. Maria liked school and did well until the last few months she was there, and even then her problems were due to her own language learning issues that needed more individualized attention. There were things I didn't like, to be sure...and I think there would have been more serious issues as Maria got older...but overall our experience was pretty positive. Now we have Kain in school, and his teacher is worthy of canonization...you know, if she were Catholic and all. :) We homeschool for several different reasons, but one of the biggies is Other People's Children. There is a wave of lousy parenting out there, and these parents are not only taking down their own children but many others as well. These five particular children managed scandalize a whole classroom full of kids, not to mention the torrents of gossip that are sure to wash over the school in the days to come. Indeed, kids in school are exposed all the time to oversexualization, bullies, violence... Homeschooling allows me to have greater influence over the kinds of friends my children have and the kind of garbage they are exposed to. Yes, there are great kids with great parents in public school...but there are a lot of tragedies out there as well, and public schools by their nature are a net for these kids. I think the vast majority of school teachers to an admirable job trying to deal with troubled kids, and I'm sure they do make a difference for some of them. But generally speaking, the best school in the world isn't going to make up for lousy parents. Are homeschooled kids all Beaver Cleaver wanna-be's? No. But they are generally a well behaved, and dare I say it?, *well socialized* group. And if there is a family that causes me concern, we have the option of not socializing with them.