Commentary: COVID-19 has parents demanding school options
Colleen Dippel, For the Express-News
Jan. 26, 2021
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Dropout rates will rise amid COVID-19, but high schools that offer sports, band and other extracurricular opportunities will see fewer dropouts than schools that don’t offer social outlets.Lisa Krantz /Staff photographer
With 2020 behind us, we are all looking with anticipation, hope and some trepidation at what 2021 may bring for students.
At Families Empowered, we have provided uninterrupted, bilingual service to families needing help as schools closed, reopened and became “hybrid,” and as people “podded” up or home-schooled for the first time. Based on what families have told us, here are predictions about education in 2021:
Ashley (L), Drake (M) and Daniel Pardo (R) pose for a picture. | Texas Home School Coalition
The homeschooling parents of a young boy who was wrongfully removed from his home in 2019 have finally been dropped from Texas’ registry of “child abusers,” officially closing the high-profile case.
According to reports, Ashley and Daniel Pardo were removed from the list this week one year after Child Protective Services dropped its five-monthslong case against the parents.
In a statement, Tim Lambert, president of the Texas Homeschool Coalition, applauded the move.
“CPS protects thousands of children every year, but they didn’t protect the Pardo family or Drake; they traumatized them. It is unconscionable that the agency would drop all charges against the family but then keep the family on the Child Abuse Registry anyway, Lambert said.
The Christian Homeschoolers in Paris has risen by about seven numbers, according to group spokeswoman Amy Kuebler.
âThere are some families who decided to withdraw from participation during the pandemic and others who decided to join in the fall semester this year,â Kuebler said. âWe had seven new families join this fall, and several of them were new to homeschooling. It would seem that there are more homeschoolers in the county than before, but there is no way to know exact numbers.â
Data from the Texas Homeschool Coalition, an organization based out of Lubbock, shows that more parents across the state have followed suit. Though official information from the Texas Education Agency is not available yet, more parents have used the groupâs withdrawal tool to remove their children from school districts.