Earlier this year, authorities found the remains of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García in a plastic container in New Britain, Connecticut. She had been abused and starved to death, according to court documents in the case. Her mother, aunt, and her mother’s boyfriend are charged with murder. The family had a history with the state’s Department of Children and Family Services, though the details of those investigations have not been released. Torres-García’s death occurred two months after her mother told the local school district that she would be homeschooling her daughter. This has renewed concerns that some abusers are using homeschooling as a way to hide the mistreatment of their children.

Another Connecticut case raised similar concerns just a few months ago. A man was found to be locked in his Waterbury home by his stepmother for 20 years. Beaten, starved, he was only permitted to leave his room for 15 minutes per day. The woman told the school district that he would be homeschooled after teachers raised concerns about his well-being.

There are similar cases across the country. One of the most egregious ones was that of 12-year-old Gavin Peterson of Utah, who died at the hands of his father, stepmother, and older brother in 2024. Peterson’s school raised repeated concerns about how he was searching through the garbage for scraps of food and that when a school employee started giving him food, his stepmother called school officials to demand they stop. The family decided shortly thereafter to pull him out of school completely.

To be clear, the vast majority of people who homeschool in this country do not abuse their children and never come onto the radar of child protective services. But there is also a pattern among some of the most egregious cases of child abuse and neglect, including those that end in fatalities or near........

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