A homeschooling family suing New Jersey for $60 million claims their lawsuit isn’t about the state’s concerns for their child’s “improper” schooling. Rather, Chris and Nicole Zimmer are furious a government official demanded entry and refused to recite the couple their rights.
“We want to change it so that they just can’t come pounding on your door and saying, ‘If you don’t let me in, you know who we are; we’re going to take your kid away,'” Chris Zimmer tells the Washington Times. “They need to start telling people what their rights are. If they want to act like cops, they can abide by the law like the police.”
In a lawsuit filed in April, the Zimmers say the Department of Child Protection and Permanency’s Michelle T. Marchese showed up at their front door, demanding entry.
The lawsuit claims an anonymous tip about their son’s homeschooling drove Marchese to their door. But the Zimmers say Marchese never specified how their methods were improper.
“In fact, the State of New Jersey clearly recognizes the rights of parents to homeschool their children where they ‘receive equivalent instruction elsewhere than at school (see N.J. Stat. Ann. §18A:38-25),’ and there is no legal authority for Marchese’s assertion that written homeschooling education records be maintained by law,” the lawsuit reads.
Further reports indicate Marchese was searching for guns and wished to evaluate the young Zimmer’s—who is 15 and holds a hunting license—access to the firearms.
“If the state trusts my son to walk around the woods with a gun, I can trust him in the house with a gun,” the elder Zimmer says.
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