Court Sends Girl to Public School Against Parents' Wishes

By Mark Walsh

A legal battle in Virginia is pitting a teenager's wish to attend public high school against her parents' desire that she be educated at home.

In what home schooling advocates call an unprecedented intrusion on parental rights, a juvenile-court judge ruled that it was in the best interest of 16-year-old Jennifer Sengpiehl of Round Hill, Va., to allow her to attend her local public high school this fall.

The girl had been educated at home and at a private religious boarding school. Her parents, Donald and Maureen Sengpiehl, have said they preferred to educate the rest of their eight children at home after they were unhappy with their eldest son's experience at...