Fairfield abuse case renews concerns about homeschools
The mother of 10 who, along with her husband, is accused of abusing her children in their suburban Fairfield home said she wanted to give her kids a homeschool education to save them from bad teachers and bullies in public schools.
But the state Department of Education has no record that Ina Rogers, 30, ever registered her three most recent home addresses as a private school, or that she filed the annual state-required affidavits saying how many students she enrolled to be homeschooled.
Nor is there any record that her children ever attended public schools in the FairfieldSuisun Unified School District, which encompasses the neighborhood of Rogers’ home.
The case has raised questions about whether state officials should do more to monitor homeschools to ensure that children don’t disappear.
“It breaks our hearts to see kids in this situation, and not to have known they were there,” said Tim Goree, executive director of administrative services and community engagement for the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District.
Rogers faces nine counts of felony child abuse and endangerment and a misdemeanor charge. Her husband, Jonathan Allen, 29, was charged Friday with seven counts of felony torture and nine counts of child abuse and endangerment.
Authorities called the abuse “sadistic,” and prosecutors detailed squalid living conditions in the Fairfield home that included floors covered in garbage, spoiled food and animal and human feces.
A new court filing released Wednesday provides a grim glimpse into the children’s lives. Police found them on March 31, after one of Rogers’ children went missing briefly. The other nine children — ages 6 months to 11 years old — were “huddled on the living room floor,” and appeared frightened and skittish, the filing requesting higher bail said.
In interviews, the children described being punched, bitten, shot with crossbows, hit with sticks and bats, strangled and waterboarded, the filing said. They had been scarred from the violent encounters, burned by scalding water and left with broken arms.
The investigation also found that Rogers knew about these incidents, failed to protect the children and sometimes participated in the abuse herself, according to the bail motion.
The details that emerged this week marked California’s second high-profile instance this year of a family cloistering children at home and allegedly subjecting them to extreme cruelty.
In January, a couple in Riverside County was accused of starving their 13 children and shackling some of them to beds in a foul-smelling house that became a prison. David and Louise Turpin said they homeschooled their children, and some news reports described desks and other classroom furniture in the family’s living room.
In March, a Washington woman drove her wife and adopted children off of a cliff in Mendocino County. Jennifer Hart and her spouse, Sarah Hart, had removed their children from Minnesota public schools in 2011, shortly after Sarah was convicted of abusing a daughter who was 6 at the time.
Collectively, these cases illustrate the quandary that homeschooling presents for officials and law enforcement agencies that are supposed to look out for children. California law makes school compulsory, but there are exemptions for kids whose parents establish a private school in their home, as well as for children who enroll in an online private school, do independent study or have a full-time tutor.
There are no screening processes to judge the quality of these educational facilities, and the state has no conclusive data on how many of them exist, or how they function.
Court records show that both Rogers and Allen had many interactions with law enforcement — the county filed child support claims on behalf of Rogers, and Allen had a 2011 domestic violence conviction — but it appears that no one ever stepped in to put the children in school.
“If the students are never registered with the school district, then we wouldn’t know to check on them,” Goree said.
“If the students are never registered with the school district, then we wouldn’t know to check on them.”
Tim Goree, Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District
California Department of Education spokesman Scott Roark said the agency wants a higher standard of accountability and “would gladly work with legislators to change the law.”
But a bill authored by Assemblyman Jose Medina, DRiverside, seeking to strengthen state oversight of private schools and homeschools, stalled in committee in April. More than 1,000 people showed up to oppose it at a hearing in Sacramento.
Supporters of homeschool education say the practice is unfairly blamed for a small number of horrific cases, and that the state has no right to intervene.
“This isn’t a Big Brother state,” said Debbie Schwarzer, a Los Altos attorney who cochairs the legal and legislative team of the nonprofit HomeSchool Association of California.
Schwarzer was critical of Medina’s bill and another by Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, arguing that legislators should not be empowered to push the state’s brand of education on individual families. Eggman pulled her bill before its first committee hearing.
“Parents should have the freedom to make the best choice for their children,” said Schwarzer, who homeschooled both of her children.
Homeschooling allows curriculum to be more flexible and tailored than a conventional public school, Schwarzer said, adding that she eschewed tests and grades.
But the opportunity for abuse and the lack of oversight is a concern that shouldn’t be overlooked, said Rachel Coleman, co-founder of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an organization based in Canton, Mass.
Coleman, who was homeschooled, said she fears that a method of education that worked for her and others is too easily exploited by sadistic parents who want to keep their children out of sight.
“The problem isn’t the parents who are trying to provide their children with a quality education,” Coleman said. “The problem is that the current system is open to abuse, because there are no guardrails to prevent these tragedies that keep popping up.”