A new sentence in favor of parents who educate at home

Today I bring you the news of a new court ruling in favor of parents who educate at home. In this case it is a family of Teruel that has been taken to court. The judgment, absolutory, has indicated that the right of children to receive an education does not imply that they are required to attend school and that home schooling is a legal and valid option.

Families who opt for home schooling sometimes encounter social services visits or, in some exceptional cases, their case reaches the courts.

In the few times that this happens the sentence has been in favor of the parents, because educating at home is not illegal in Spain and the only thing that can be judged is whether there is abandonment, which has not happened in any case.

As we can read in the blog of Madelen Goiria, a professor of Civil Law at the University of the Basque Country and a great defender of the home education movement, the sentence is especially important.

In this sentence, the judge has clearly separated the concepts of schooling and education to assess that the education they provide in the home is sufficient to consider the content of the exercise of parental authority fulfilled, without the need for schooling, as an essential requirement for such compliance. The progress is evident towards a more permissive notion of the content of the duties of parental rights that would include both the schooling of minors, and providing comprehensive training to those autonomously in the home itself.

It is, as I said, about a new sentence in favor of parents who educate at home and lay the groundwork for these families to exercise their right to decide the best education for their children without encountering legal problems.