Roemhild v. StateRoemhild v. State
Lead Opinion
This case concerns the constitutionality of
The appellants, Terry and Vickie Roemhild, are the parents of three school-age children. In late September of 1981 they were arrested for violating the compulsory attendance law by allegedly failing to enroll their children in a public or private school for the period August 24 to September 18, 1981. The Roemhilds moved to dismiss the charges on various constitutional grounds, and also defended on the basis that the children were being taught at home in a private school operated by the appellants.
There was a bench trial of the case, at which the evidence showed that appellants are both high school graduates, and that, although Vickie had been a substitute teacher in the Head Start program one summer, and had taught in Sunday schools and Bible schools, neither parent has any formal training or background to be qualified as a teacher; accordingly, neither holds a teacher’s certificate from the State Board of Education.
The Roemhilds testified that their decision to teach their children privately stemmed partly from their beliefs in God and His laws. They are members of the Worldwide Church of God, and they testified that, although their church’s doctrine did not require them to withhold their children from public schools, they felt the public
Accordingly, in July of 1981 the Roemhilds began to teach their children at home, and, because they thought their teaching successful, they decided to hold their children out of the public school system during the regular school year and continue their home education. In a letter dated September 11, 1981, the original and copies of which were sent to the local school principal, the local superintendent of schools, and the state superintendent of schools, the Roemhilds informed these authorities of their decision, and stated that, since they wished their teaching to be legal, they had done much research and had discovered that Georgia law did not explicitly prohibit home education and did not explicitly require certification of parents before they could teach their children at home, and that, moreover, a federal court had said that if a parent was competent to teach and that if the education given by the parent was adequate, home education satisfied the compulsory attendance law.
The only response received by the Roemhilds was from the State Department of Education. It stated that the compulsory school attendance law had been interpreted to mean that all children had to be enrolled in a recognized educational institution, but that court decisions had raised questions as to the definition of a school. The letter further informed the Roemhilds that school officials at the state level were not in a position to tell the Roemhilds whether their desire to teach their children at home was lawful, and that whether the local school system would consider them in compliance with the law was a question that addressed itself to the Roemhilds, the local school system, and the local legal authorities. The letter did inform the Roemhilds that they needed to keep attendance records and submit them to the local attendance officer.
The Roemhilds also testified that they made further attempts to contact the local school principal and the local superintendent of schools to discover what requirements they needed to meet in order to teach their children at home and be in compliance with the law. They testified that they could get no one to discuss the matter with them, but that the local attendance officer did tell them that the local school superintendent did not consider home education to be in compliance with the law.
In addition to the foregoing evidence, at trial it was stipulated that the State Department of Education has no authority to regulate private schools and cannot therefore require certification of private school teachers, and that state law does not define what is meant by private school.
The trial judge ruled that the Roemhilds had not sufficiently raised the constitutional issues, and were not operating a “private school” within the meaning of
On appeal, the Roemhilds contend, among other things, that
1). Because the trial court held the Roemhilds had not sufficiently raised their constitutional challenges to
Moreover, a criminal statute must set sufficiently definite standards for those who are assigned the duty to enforce it so that basic policy matters are not impermissibly delegated “to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application.” Grayned v. City of Rockford,
These principles were recently applied by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin when it considered that state’s compulsory school attendance law, one practically identical to our own, and held that it was void for vagueness. State v. Popanz,
Because neither the Wisconsin statute nor any administrative rules or regulations defined “private school” or specified criteria which had to be met to qualify as a “private school,” the court found that the statute did not give sufficient notice to persons bent on obeying the law. Id. at 754. The court also found that the lack of definition of “private school” had the effect of delegating to local officials the basic policy decision of whether a child was attending a “private school,” and thus posed the danger of arbitrary and
We find that the Georgia compulsory school attendance law suffers from the same infirmities. It is clear that neither
Notwithstanding, the state argues that the phrase “private school” is one a person of ordinary intelligence would understand to mean an institution for the education of children which receives its funds from private sources. We, along with the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, are not convinced that this is the only definition which a person of ordinary intelligence could deduce. State v. Popanz,
Although we agree that the word “school” clearly puts one on notice that an organized education must be provided to the child, there are many questions concerning the scope, nature, and place of the education which are left unanswered by the statute or applicable authorities. A sampling of these questions follows: Must the place of education be an “institution” which many children attend and which has an influx of new students and outflux of graduating students every year, or may parents teach or have their children taught at home? Must the “school” provide for the yearly sequential advancement of students or may students proceed at their own pace? What facilities, such as libraries, classrooms, or playing fields must the “school” provide? What must be the educational background of the teachers — must they be state certified or may “qualified” persons teach? What kind of curriculum and educational materials
Because of the subjective nature of the interpretation of the term “schooling,” and because
Furthermore, the statute violates a second due process value in that it impermissibly delegates to local law enforcement officials, judges, and juries the policy decision of what constitutes a “private school.” Id. at 755; Grayned v. City of Rockford,
Thus,
For the reasons given above, the Roemhilds’ convictions must be reversed.
Judgment reversed.
Notes
(b) Any parent, guardian, or other person residing in this state who has control or charge of a child or children and who shall violate this part shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall he subject to a fine not to exceed $100.00 or imprisonment not to exceed 30 days, or both, at the discretion of the court having jurisdiction. Each day’s absence from school in violation of this part shall constitute a separate offense.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
In 1916, the General Assembly first enacted the Compulsory School Attendance Law (Ga. L. 1916, p. 101), requiring that “every parent, guardian, or other person having charge and control of a child between the ages of eight and fourteen years, who is not exempted or excused as hereinafter provided, shall cause the said child to be enrolled in and to attend continuously for four months of each year a public school of the district or of the city or town in which the child resides;... Such attendance at a public school shall not be required where the child attends for the same period some other school giving instruction in the ordinary branches of an English education. . . .” Three years later, the 1916 Act was repealed and supplanted by the Act of 1919 which, among other things, created the State Board of Education (Ga. L. 1919, pp. 288, 291).
That statute became, in essence, the present code section, except that the requirement is simply that the responsible person “shall enroll and send such child or children to a public or private school.”
The question presented in this appeal is quite simple — whether the term “private school” as used in the foregoing section is too vague to be understood by ordinary persons.
We have recently treated this issue in McCord v. State,
Can it now be said, that the term “private school” must fail for
I think not.
First, compulsory education, carrying with it criminal sanctions, has been a part of the law of Georgia since 1916.
Second, the public wisdom of requiring that parents enroll their children in an adequate educational institution is now beyond quarrel. “The child at the will of the parent could be allowed to grow up in ignorance and become a more than useless member of society; and for this great wrong brought about by the neglect of his parents the common law provided no remedy.” Board of Education v. Purse,
Third, the compulsory attendance law has been upheld, indirectly, in Anderson v. State,
Finally, we have recently held that the word “school” is capable of interpretation, relying upon the dictionary definition of school as “ ‘[a]n organized source of education or training: as (1) an institution for the teaching of children.’ ” Risser v. City of Thomasville,
In order to resolve this issue in total accord with the established longevity of compulsory education, with the precedents in our state law, and with what is one of the highest of all authorities — common sense — we need only inquire as to whether or not the activities provided by the Roemhilds met the dictionary definition of school as “an organized source of education or training: as (1) an institution for the teaching of children.”
We, with the trial court below, should have no difficulty in coming easily to the conclusion that the efforts of the Roemhilds, however well-intentioned, fall far below the common understanding
We should not destroy the Compulsory Education Act because the statutory term “private school” is not defined with all of the exceptions, exclusions, reservations, and provisos exemplifying the regulation-writing genius of a federal bureaucracy.