Melissa Busekros is a fifteen-year-old girl, the oldest of six children in the Busekros family. She lives in Erlangen, Germany. Melissa attended the Christian Ernst Gymnasium until the summer of 2005 when she was told that she would have to repeat the grade because she was failing in Latin and math. The situation in the class contributed significantly to her failure: the noise levels were high, there were frequent class cancellations, and she was unable to receive the additional assistance that she needed. She had good grades in all of her other subjects, so repeating a whole grade was not the solution, both she and her parents agreed, especially since the upcoming class was reputed to be even more disruptive than the one she had attended. Melissa is a musician. She decided to remain in Ernst High for music and to sing in the school choir while taking academic classes at home where she could receive the specific tutoring that she needed.
The school officials and local
school
authorities disagreed. They expelled
Melissa from the school and assigned her to the nearby Hauptschule, the
lowest
level high school in the German three tiered system, where she would
not be
able to receive the leaving certificate (diploma). Instead,
she and her parents chose to
continue home educating; her brothers and sisters still attended their
local
schools. At the end of that school year
(2005-06), Melissa was no longer subject to full time compulsory
schooling;
nevertheless, the Youth Welfare Office filed suit against the family
because
the were home educating. Only her
father, Hubert Busekros, was able to attend the hearing because Melissa
was out
of the country at that time. Later, the
Judge of the Family Court made an unannounced visit to the Busekros
home.
On Tuesday, January 30, 2007, with no advance notice of any kind, police officers and social workers arrived at the Busekros’ door just after 7:00 a.m. Hubert Busekros had already left for work; the children were eating breakfast; some were still dressing, preparing for the day. They were startled by the demand that Melissa be handed over to the uninvited visitors who produced a court order authorizing their actions. It read, “The relevant Youth Welfare Office is hereby instructed to and authorized to bring the child, if necessary by force, to a hearing and may obtain police support for this purpose.”
Melissa was taken to the Child
Psychiatric
unit of the Nuremberg Clinic where she was questioned for four hours in
the
presence of a specialist, Dr. Schanda.
Following this, she was returned to her home… to the great
relief of her
parents and siblings who did not even know where she had been taken or
what was
happening to her. Little did they know
then that the real nightmare had just begun!
Two days later, on February 1, 2007, fifteen police officers and representatives of the Youth Welfare Office appeared once more at the door, this time with a court order to remove Melissa from her parents’ custody altogether and to take her back to the Child Psychiatric Unit of the Nuremberg Clinic. They justified their actions with the findings of the psychiatrist two days earlier: Melissa was developmentally delayed by one year and she has school phobia. Her parents and siblings do not know when they will be able to see her again because the official German approach to treating school phobia is to forbid the patient to have any contact with those closest to her. Supposedly, they enable the phobia.
The Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit (the Network for Freedom in Education), a home school advocacy association in Germany strongly condemned the “inconsiderate and totally incommensurate behavior on the part of the officials involved and demand that they give Melissa her freedom and return her to her family immediately.” Additionally, the Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit calls all politicians in Erlangen and in the rest of Germany to ensure that such human rights abuses and high-handed behavior by government officials are stopped…”. [Press release February 2, 2007]
The shock and outrage prompted by this almost unbelievable tale will reverberate in the home education community all over the world. Early home educators in the United States will be reminded of the horrors that they experienced. A Michigan farm family practiced how their five children would “escape” to a safe place (their neighbor’s house a mile away) through an underground exit in the barn, originally dug as part of a foundation. A couple in Ohio had their truck packed and ready to drive away the minute they were threatened by school or social services people. The actions of American school officials in those years – in the Nineteen Eighties – were similar to those of German officials now. But, even the worst misfortune that befell an American parent and child in those earlier times pales in comparison to the harrowing experience of the Busekros family today. What place do the Gestapo tactics used against the Busekros family have in a democratic society?
Are children in conventional schools who are one year behind in Latin and math hauled away to psychiatric clinics? How can any test results (or interview results, even) be considered valid when a youngster is beset with fear and duress the way Melissa was?
What purpose is served by Melissa’s confinement in a psychiatric ward? Was it to help for this sensitive, artistic young woman whose only “sin” was taking full responsibility for her own education, exercising her right to choose?
Have any of the judges, prosecuting attorneys, social services personnel, police, teachers, principals, superintendents seriously examined their own thoroughly inhumane actions?
German authorities have stated that the compulsory education law can only be fulfilled by attendance at a public or private school (both of which are governed by the state). They neglect to mention that home education was an accepted practice before Hitler outlawed it. Furthermore, several German Education Ministers state that by educating children at home parents create an elite class, an evil in a democratic society.
How can this blatant discrimination against parents and children who choose to learn without using government schools be justified? In a democratic country, shouldn’t citizens have the freedom to choose? Shouldn’t there be freedom in education?
Freedom-loving people in Germany and in every other country will, without a doubt, read this account and be outraged at the injustice of it. Please contact the German Embassy in your own country to protest it and to demand that Melissa be set free. [The German Embassy in the U.S. is at 4645 Reservoir Rd. NW, Washington, DC 20007, telephone: 202 298-4000.]
Please, also, support the work
of the
Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit: contact
Elizabeth Kuhnle at presse@netzwerk-bildungsfreiheit.de.