Innovative Hybrid Homeschool Program Fights for the Right to Teach After Being Wrongly Labeled as a Childcare Center

PITTSBURGH—Katy Duckstein created Roots Academy to work with other homeschool parents to provide instruction and socialization. Operating in Pittsburgh’s northern suburbs, Roots is an innovative hybrid program that doesn’t fit into a traditional class of school. In March, Katy received a surprise inspection that resulted in a cease-and-desist letter claiming that she was operating an unlicensed childcare center.

Roots is not childcare and is not a private school, but just because it doesn’t neatly fit into one of these boxes doesn’t mean the state can shut it down. Today, Katy is teaming up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to challenge the state’s determination that Roots is a childcare center and demanding respect for her constitutional right to provide education to willing families.

“This is a classic square-peg-round-hole case, where government is attempting to stifle creativity and entrepreneurship by forcing an innovative education program into an antiquated regulatory box,” said IJ Attorney An Altik. “The education that Katy provides is not ‘child care,’ and the Constitution protects her right to offer it to willing parents. Roots is a homeschool hybrid program and should be regulated like homeschool.”

Katy has majors in math education and theater direction, a master’s in educational leadership, and a Pennsylvania state math teaching certificate for grades 7-12. She taught in public schools for several years before deciding to homeschool her children and started Roots to work cooperatively with other homeschool parents. Roots provides instruction three days a week and curriculum for parents to teach at home. It is not a childcare center but does not fall into the many exemptions to that regulation written in state law.

If Roots operated at least 180 days a year, it could be considered a private school and be exempt. If it operated fewer than 90 consecutive days a year, it would fall within an exemption for summer camps. It would be exempt if it taught only a single subject, such as art, math, or music. And if Roots operated no more than two hours per day, three days per week, it would be exempt.

“Together with parents, I run an innovative school that doesn’t fit neatly into boxes created by the government,” said Katy. “Parents should not be walled in by the imagination of lawmakers and bureaucrats when it comes to the best way to teach their children.”

IJ is asking the state to dismiss its investigation into whether Roots is violating childcare regulations. “Child care,” according to Pennsylvania statutes, is care provided “in lieu of parental care,” but parents use Roots as part of the home education programs that they conduct and supervise for their kids, under the oversight of superintendents of their local school districts.

Moreover, Pennsylvania exempts a whole host of activities from the childcare requirements, including instruction provided in licensed and unlicensed private schools. It is absurd to treat a home education program as “child care” when the state appropriately treats a private school program as education. It also raises grave constitutional concerns, because parents have a federal constitutional right to direct the education of their children, and Pennsylvania may not discriminate against parents based on how they choose to exercise that right.

Katy’s case is the first in IJ’s new Education Entrepreneurship Project. Since IJ opened its doors 35 years ago, it has fought for the right of parents to direct the education of their children. IJ’s defense helped establish the constitutionality of school choice programs nationwide, notably in a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), and Carson v. Makin(2022). This new project will focus on reducing common barriers to innovation in education, including licensing, zoning, and speech regulations—all issues that IJ litigates.

“No two children are the same, and every parent wants the education that will best meet the unique needs of her child,” said IJ Senior Attorney Michael Bindas, who leads the Education Entrepreneurship Project. “That requires a truly pluralistic system, in which education entrepreneurs are free to innovate, but too often, they are hamstrung by government regulations created for old models of learning and designed to maintain the status quo. IJ’s Education Entrepreneurship Project will change that by removing barriers to innovation and entrepreneurship in private education, so that all parents can access the alternatives that will work best for their kids.”