Homer-Center School District

The HCAABC sponsors football, baseball, softball, and basketball teams are nicknamed the "Homer City Bears."

Parents who elected to home-school their children filed suit alleging that the defendant Pennsylvania school district in charge of administering and enforcing Pennsylvania's compulsory school attendance laws infringed upon their sincerely held religious beliefs that education is a “religion,” and that the state has no authority to regulate home education programs by religiously motivated homeschoolers.

The parents alleged that the state homeschooling act ceded too much control over their children's religious education to the state in requiring them to submit an affidavit outlining their educational objectives to the defendants at the beginning of the school year and by requiring them to submit an additional log and portfolio containing samples of their children's work for discretionary administrative review and approval.

In granting the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, the federal district court held that the statute, either on its face or as applied, did not violate the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause or the Pennsylvania Religious Freedom Protection Act.

The state's homeschooling requirements did not place a burden, let alone a substantial one, on the parents’ freedom to practice their religion.