The Texas Supreme Court will hear arguments this week on a case of a home-schooling family that is accused of not teaching its children because the family was “waiting to be raptured.”
According to the Associated Press, the McIntyre family home-schooled their five children for two years. The El Paso School District says the McIntyres refused to comply with Texas Education Agency standards or verify they were teaching.
One of the children ran away and enrolled in public school. An uncle in the family came forward with testimony that the children never had homework because they were “about to be raptured anyway.”
“Our faith is foremost in our lives,” said mother Laura McIntyre in an affidavit. “And we find it very important that our children receive a faith-based education.”
The school district launched an investigation into truancy and the McIntyres filed suit, claiming the school district violated the family’s 14th Amendment rights.
Texas law says that home-school children must be taught education basics, but the state does not require testing or student progress reports.
The Home School Legal Defense Association has said the family is “in full compliance” with the law.
“This is radical stuff, and it is not fiction,” said Jay Michaelson in a column for The Daily Beast. “Whether or not the McIntyres exempted their children from education because the rapture is imminent, 77 percent of American evangelicals believe we’re living in the End Times. A significant percentage of them believe that the secular government is oppressing Christians and is soon to be destroyed in the coming tribulations.”
About 300,000 students are estimated to be home-schooled in Texas, according to The Daily Beast.
Photo courtesy: flickr.com
Publication date: November 3, 2015