Days after a restrictive state court ruling sent shock waves through the California home-schooling community, locals weighed in on the reality of the decision.

On Feb. 28, the 2nd District Court of Appeal issued an opinion stating that parents without a teaching credential do not have a constitutional right to home school children, a decision that could much more strictly regulate the current system.

But Lincoln parent Ray Young believes some of the resulting panic could be premature.

“Once the dust settles, I think it will be OK,” said Young, who, along with wife Christine, home schools his three eldest children. “Jack O’Connell (California’s superintendent of public instruction) has been supportive (of home schooling) and Governor Schwarzenegger has said he would sort it out in the legislature. Ultimately, it comes down to parental rights, and California does support them.”

Still, Young is against the court’s choice.

“The court is so out of step with reality,” he said. “They took a specific case and made a giant blanket statement.”

If actually applied, he said, the ruling could have drastic effects.

“I can see why people would be scared,” Young said. “They’ve taken parents who choose to home school their children and made them criminal.”

Becky Romness, principal of Community Christian Schools in Lincoln, expressed concern over the potential impact to private schools.

“This would have a very detrimental effect on private schools, because they are not able to be competitive with public schools when it comes to the amount of money they can pay their staff,” Romness said.

As opposed to charters, private full-time schools in California are not required to have credentialed teachers.

Because they often can’t afford to pay salaries on par with public schools, Romness said “private schools have to be very creative in providing quality teachers on a much lower budget,” often hiring teachers credentialed in another state, or only partly through the credential process. Schools that belong to organizations like the Association of Christian Schools offer their own certification programs, Romness said.

While California spent $8,486 per student on public education in 2005-06, according to Californiaschool

finance.org, Community Christian Schools charges just $3,375 tuition to cover each student, she said.

If applied as written, “we would be looking at all of us getting teaching credentials,” said Leslie Buchanan, board president and Placer County spokesperson for the HomeSchool Association of California.

Buchanan said the association, known as HSC, and other statewide and national home school groups are taking action.

“Right now we’re asking the ruling court to revisit their decision and shorten its reach,” she said. “But as of now, nothing has changed because the ruling has 30 days before it goes into effect.”

Until the ruling, California had relatively lax guidelines for home schooling compared with other states, Buchanan said.

“We’ve had a lot of freedom,” she said. “It’s not something we’re interested in losing.”

While the decision has been seen as a threat to some, its interpretation doesn’t apply to public charters such as Horizon Charter School in Lincoln, said LuAnn Boone, Horizon’s CEO.

“From the information we have, and in attorneys’ opinions, there is no impact on California charter schools because we are provided for in the education code,” Boone said. “We have to comply with independent study and with all other guidelines.”

In the particular Los Angeles-area case that resulted in the ruling, students were enrolled in a private Christian school.

Regardless of its reach, the case would probably be appealed to the state supreme court, Boone said in a statement to parents.

If upheld, the ruling could impact approximately 166,000 children who are home-schooled statewide, according to the Pacific Justice Institute, a Sacramento-based legal organization that plans to appeal the decision.