After the August 2010 conference in a remote Bulgarian town the Association for Home Education filed papers with the local court to register as a non-profit. The registration was denied in October. The founders of the registration voted in majority not to appeal the court’s decision to the higher courts. Since then a new homeschooling family in Sofia, a Christian couple with four children, withdrew their children from the state school system.
Since then the officials have been writing threatening letters insisting on the immediate return of these Christian kids in the state-schools. This they insist even though their social workers had gone to the family’s home and have established that the children appear calm, comfortable and well care for. The parents have only been threatened with fines so far. In an even more sinister development a single mother in Sofia, who withdrew her son from the state-schools to homeschool has been threatened, not in writing, by the principle of the school, that she will be given to the prosecutor’s office to begin a procedure for taking her parental rights from her. This principle had had the boy enrolled in his school to keep state funds coming in although the boy has not been going to this state-run school. Any schooling outside of state schools or state-controlled “private” schools is technically illegal in Bulgaria. Please, pray for these families to stand firm for their God-given rights to choose the form of upbringing and education for their children.