Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Ohio 'House of Horrors': Kids Homeschooled?

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Years before four members of the Siders family were charged with 16 counts of child endangering, six of the Siders children were enrolled in school with the Gallia County Local School District. The children were considered habitually truant during the 2021-2022 school district. But the children were enrolled in online school a year earlier. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy traces the school records for the children and looks at the controversial issue of homeschooling in this episode of Crime Fix —a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests: Phillip Kuhn https://www.facebook.com/gallialocalCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Van DinhGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I think that there are some real concern of homeschooling, especially in Ohio since it's changed in the last couple of years. What was happening with the Siders children before they vanished from the classroom? We're going back one year before the children stopped going to school because what we found may explain how they fell through the cracks. I'm Ann Janette Levy, and this is crime fix. The 16 Siders children are in therapeutic foster care. They are safe. and hopefully they are with adults who are caring for them. But we haven't received an update about how exactly they are doing

or what they went through in the house on Omer Street or the other homes where they lived in Galia and Vinton counties over the years. I've told you before that the six oldest Ciders children were once enrolled in school in Galea County. We verified that because long before Gary and Elizabeth Ciders were charged with child endangering, the Gallia County School District filed truancy complaints against Gary Siders Jr. and Elizabeth in October 2021, stating that their six oldest children had not been to school at all that school year.

The school district considered them habitually truant, and the children were in danger of being labeled unruly children, meaning they were disobedient or didn't show up for school. At that time, the six oldest children were enrolled at Adaville Elementary School, but they didn't attend one day of school. Not one. But a year earlier, the children were enrolled in online school. At that time, the oldest Sider's child was 12. The second oldest was 11. The third was nine. The fourth was eight. The fifth was seven and the sixth child was six. For that 2020, 2021 school year, the six Siders children were enrolled in Gallia County's online school. Yes, you heard me right. They were enrolled in online school. I've confirmed the children were enrolled in the district's Southern Ohio

Digital Academy. Whether the children were actually taking part in classes online, taking tests, and getting grades, we don't know. You might be asking yourself, now who exactly enrolled the kids in online school? Any guesses? Well, if you guessed Elizabeth Siders, you're right. Of course Elizabeth enrolled the children in school. Moms typically take care of all of that stuff. Trust me, I am one. Elizabeth enrolled the children in online school on August 26, 2020. So it would appear that Elizabeth, the mother of the children, wanted her children to receive an education. But we don't know how active the children were in online school.

The district isn't releasing that information, but in 2020, the world was locked down. A lot of districts were simply using online school. Enrollment in the online school in Galea County went up. Now, during the last school year, Superintendent Philip Coon, says 284 of the district's 2100 students were actually homeschooled. That's different from online schooling. Philip Coon is going to join me here shortly to discuss his concerns about homeschooling,

the positives and the negatives and more. If you love digging into the details of crime cases as much as I do, you have to download the Law and Crime Plus app. If you haven't checked it out yet, here are three reasons to jump on board today. Number one, complete Access. Watch the best shows from both law and crime and court TV completely ad-free. Number two, you get case files. Deep dive access to raw trial evidence including body cam video, 911 calls, crime scene photos, and much more. And finally, it's free for 30 days. We're giving all of our viewers a full month to test it out completely risk-free. Head over to law and crimeplus.com, enter promo code crime fix, and start exploring today. in 2020, the children would have been living in this house on honeysuckle in Cheshire. I've told you about the house before. A woman who works nearby told us the house was so trashed after the ciders moved out that the owner had to renovate the place. She said there was human and pet feces and urine in the house and trash. It was a mess. A neighbor across the street

had told us that the kids mostly stayed in the house, but he had seen them playing outside. And at that time, he thought there were nine children. So how much schooling was actually taking place in the house on honeysuckle during the 2020-2020 school year? The district isn't telling us how often the Siders children took part in school online. That is information the district can't release, but Elizabeth Siders had just met the deadline for enrolling her children back in 2020 for online school as required by statute. The state statute reads, within five calendar days after commencing home education, moving into a new school district or withdrawing from a public or non-public school and by the 30th day of August each year thereafter, the parent or guardian of a child receiving a home education shall

transmit a notice to the superintendent of the child's school district of residence. The notice shall provide the parent's name and address, the child's name, and an assurance that the child will receive education in the subject areas required under this section. The child's exemption under this section is effective immediately upon receipt of notice. The district superintendent shall provide a written acknowledgement of the superintendent's receipt of the notice to the parent or guardian, not later than 14 calendar days after receiving the notice. Now, that was the homeschooling information. This raises another question. Why did Elizabeth Siders wait until the deadline to register her children for online school?

And where were they attending school before 2020? There's only one other school district in Gallia County. Now, I've told you previously that children's services had had some type of contact with the ciders in Gallia County, and that was part of the reason that they moved. Was this contact part of the reason why Elizabeth registered the children for online schooling? Okay, so to discuss this whole issue of online schooling and homeschooling, I want to bring in Philip Coon. He is the superintendent of the Gallia County Local School District out there in Gallia County, Ohio. This is where the Ciders children were enrolled in school for a time. So Philip Coon, thank you so much for coming on. I know you're busy getting ready for the school year and you're

entering your sixth year now as superintendent. Correct. Yeah. Excited about the school year. Yeah. I know we're getting ready for it in my house too. Tell me if you would. You offer online schooling. You have a digital academy there in Gallia County. But the kids are you? You you know, are online doing school, do you have concerns about that? How do you feel about online schooling despite the fact that you guys offer it? I think in today's world it's a good option to have, especially, I think, given the ease of just going to homeschooling per se. So families can decide, you know, just to go to homeschooling and have no connection to a school district.

And I think that for those, for some of those families that are considering that, the online schooling might be at least some way that we can kind of bridge that gap and stay connected to families. Online schooling, you know, I think all educators would say, you know, is not the best way to educate kids. we want, you know, our teachers do the best they can with that format. However, being in person with an educator throughout the day, we would always think that that's the best way to receive instruction. Philip, what are the requirements for online school? I mean, you just log on, do you chat with a teacher on there? I mean, what happens?

Yeah, our online school has 30 hours of required instruction. So we do have an online platform with the various subjects that students will work through modules. And it's more for our middle school and high school students. And so they log on during the week and work through those modules. And we do have teachers available for Google meets to talk and discuss the instruction. And then certainly if a student has an IEP and we need to meet those needs for an IEP, they're already meeting set up so that they can meet with the teacher and talk through, you know, the interventions that are necessary to help that child to get on grade level.

So it's very similar to a regular, I mean the requirements are similar to a regular school day. However, I would always say that, you know, being in person in a classroom is always the best way to learn. That way you're getting that, you know, feedback in real time. You know, many people that are online don't take the time to, you know, or don't take the opportunity to ask questions. And so when you're in a classroom, you're learning to work in teams, working groups, and certainly you're getting more feedback from our instructors. So I would always say that, you know, being in the classroom and in our buildings

is the best way to receive instruction. I would say that also that, you know, we learned a lot through COVID. Online learning is not the best platform. However, some families, it's a good option because it's better to have that online option than to not come at all. And we see with homeschooling that at any point

they can decide just to go ahead and go to homeschooling and we'd rather have them at least to be online with us. So we have some sort of connection with them and way to monitor their progress. Our online students also take assessments, state assessments, and they have to come into the building to take those state assessments. So we do get to see them face to face in those situations. That's just another way that we can be in touch with families, be in touch with students.

and, you know, be able to monitor them just a little. Is that similar to a child in your district attending actual school? Because I guess six hours a day would be considered a school day, correct? Correct. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Let's talk now about this whole issue of homeschooling.

You know, homeschooling, you hear about people who do it and they say, oh, my God, it's amazing. you give the kids more attention, you know, more individualized, more individualized, personalized experience. However, you're not getting the structure of a classroom. You're not getting the socialization. I'm sure there are some families that do homeschooling really well. I mean, I know I go to church with several families that choose to homeschool and do that for religious reasons and have great kids and bright kids. I think it just depends on the family and whether their family structure can provide the right atmosphere for that. I think like you said, the structure of being in school is having to be at a certain place at a certain time, having to

get up in the morning like we would do as adults to arrive at work. That's always beneficial. So it's the structure, I think, of being in person that is beneficial. And then I would say, you know, generally speaking, there are many people who struggle with providing the instruction for homeschooling. And I think that we see that whenever we have kids that maybe have been homeschooled for a while and then come back to school because when we do standardized testing, many times are well below grade level. And so I think the consistency of the instruction of being in person, is beneficial. The structure of being in person is beneficial. And then that checks and balances too, I think, of just being cared for and having basic healthcare needs or, you know,

meals being met. You know, when you come to school, you're going to be provided with lunch. And we have, you know, caring adults here that are going to be watching out and trying to support you as the whole child, whether it be medical needs or what have you. So I think that there are some real concerns with homeschooling, especially in Ohio since it's changed in the last couple of years, that now, you know, parents do not have to give you a curriculum that they're following, and there's no assessments that have to be completed. So it's, you know, it's for those people who don't do it well, sometimes they may not even know they're not doing it. well because they're not giving assessments that would measure the growth of the child. So I do have

real concerns about homeschooling in general. I will say again, that some people do it, I think, probably pretty well. But there are a lot of people who struggle to meet the kind of standards or education that you would get in person. Let's break that down a little bit. You said there was a change that took place. Prior to that change taking place in Ohio, were the parents required when they were saying, hey, I'm going to homeschool my child. Were they required to follow a curriculum and provide a curriculum? Or how did that work prior to this change? The change happened in October of 23. And so before that time, parents would submit the curriculum that they would be using to, you know, to provide instruction for reading math, social studies, science, etc.

And then there would have to be a licensed teacher that would sign off on the completion of that at the end of the year, or an assessment where, you know, taking, you know, a state assessment or a district level assessment so that you could measure the progress. And that way you can ensure that education was happening. Now, parents can simply just submit a form saying we're choosing to homeschool, and then there's no accountability past that. Wow. Wow. So it's like the Wild Wild West. You know, I'm going to homeschool my kid and I'm just going to do it my way and I don't have to tell you what I'm doing. That's correct. That's correct. So there's a lot of concern with that. And additionally, I mean, I'm for my understanding, I mean, you can basically decide your child's graduated and have a diploma for them. And no one's able to, you know, verify what's been accomplished.

So it's like you graduate from the Smith Family School of homeschooling? We actually had someone that submitted, you know, a transcript saying that they attended, I think, a certain name of their academy, which was just their family name. So, yes. That's, that's astounding to me because I thought, you know, I guess I was wrong. I thought if you were going to homeschool your child, you'd have to have some correspondence with a school district and be like at least taking tests and doing all of this stuff. But you're saying there was a change that took place at the state level. And now it's just like, you know, my child's going to attend the Angenette Levy School of homeschooling. And that's, I said the child's, we're good.

You know, he or she has graduated and that's it. That's correct. That's correct. And I mean, it's a real concern, I think, for our society because, you know, I think we're not preparing, it's an educational neglect really. I mean, we're not preparing a percentage of our students, you know, to go out into the real world. and, you know, be able to interact with other people, to be able to read at grade level, just to help them have the tools to be successful. Okay. Now, I know that you really can't talk about the Ciders case.

However, I'm going to just touch on something that is a concern related to that. And that is the concern that teachers and school superintendents, such as yourself, school staff, are mandatory reporters. when it comes to potential abuse and neglect. Oftentimes, you know, when kids come from backgrounds where they don't have a lot or they're in need, you know, sometimes kids, the only meal they get is at school. It's sad, but it's true. And I know, like, at my son's school, around the holidays, they talk about, you know, the kids that need it.

they send home like meal packs and stuff like that. So the kids still have food. And oftentimes these schools, teachers, school staff, are the first ones to spot signs of neglect and abuse. So with regard to homeschooling, talk to me about the concern with that. Well, like I was saying earlier, I think that, you know, the school districts, especially in rural areas such as ours, um, provide so much more than just an education. It's it is kind of that well check and making sure that kids have what they need. Uh, it's Christmas gifts at, at Christmas time.

It's it's backpacks of food that go home with kids over a long weekend. Um, it's dental care, you know, that, and, you know, that is provided sometimes within districts and provided within ours. Um, you know, so that it's a really a whole child approach, I think, think when when kids are in our buildings and that we can really monitor their needs and help support families really not you know we're not here to to go against parents or anything that you know we're here to support parents and provide where there are gaps and maybe their care and then that I guess that would be another thing too is just we do we have after

school programs that are that we have within our buildings that help families you know those working families to have someone at home you know to watch over their children when they're at work so a lot of things I think that the public education provide that's really necessary to to raise in a child it's that whole it takes a village to raise a child we're part of that village we talked earlier in the show about the number of students in your district who are homeschooled. It's like 280 something out of 2100. We finished last year with 284 students being homeschooled out of approximately a little over 2100 students.

So we're somewhere between 12 to 13% of our students, potential students that are being homeschooled at this time, which is a larger percentage I think than many other districts. but we've definitely seen that number, that percentage really climbed over the years. You know, I've researched it back over the last 15 or so years, and that number, you know, is drastically increased. I think the first year that I looked at it, we were about 34 students being schooled. And then I think that number really took off during COVID when that was, you know, happening regularly.

And so, again, I think. the change in legislation really accelerated that because now there's really no accountability. And so another piece of this I think is chronic absenteeism. So we, you know, we're responsible for reporting when students aren't, you know, attending. And so when there's pressure to attend and there's potential, you know, a legal situation, then parents can just choose to go ahead and home school. And then that that takes care of the legal obligation to send your child in school. Do you guys have a lot of habitual truance?

So I'm going to go back to what's called chronic absenteeism, which is 10% missing 10% of the year. And that's something we report to the state. So out of a 180 days, we're 18 days approximately that they're missing. and we had 22% of our students that were chronically absent this past year. I think that's actually a little below the state average, if I recall, correct? 22% is actually down for us the year before we had 26% of our kids that were chronically absent at that definition. And so it's a real concern in Ohio, you know, to get that number down.

I think that, you know, when you're missing that large of a percentage, you're going to struggle to keep up in school. And so, again, the ability to homeschool easily, I think, is something that people do whenever, you know, sometimes they do that because they don't want to face the requirement of coming to school. Wow. That's, that's wild. So you just don't even know how those kids are doing and they're just, you know, you have no clue what could be going on with these kids. When they're homeschooled, correct. When they're still on our, what I'll call on our books, they're so connected with us and not unenrolled. We are still doing what we need to do to make contact with families, have diversionary hearings for attendance, involving law enforcement or the courts, juvenile court.

But once they decide to go to homeschooling, you know, we don't we don't have a lot of teeth at that point. We don't have, they're outside of our reach. Well, that is really concerning. You know, I hope, you know, that deadline is approaching this leader this month for people to notify your district under statute whether they're going to homeschool their kids or not. I'm hoping that for the kids' sake, you know, in homeschooling, I agree with you, can be done right. But I'm hoping maybe that number goes down a little bit for you guys this school year. We'd love to see that because we want kids to be here.

We feel like we're the best place to get an education. And our scores have been indicating that over the last several years. We're having some of our highest achievement that we've had in many years. And so we know this is a place that they can grow and become good readers and be able to do math at a proficient level, which is key. And so, again, we've improved in that area, and we know that we can provide great instruction. And again, like you said, they may be able to do that within their families in that home in some cases.

But the percentages of that are very low in my estimation. Well, we are wishing you the best of luck with this upcoming school year and all of the kids as well and their parents. Mr. Coon, Philip Coon, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about. It's a very important subject. Records show that Elizabeth Siders attended Gallia County local schools when she was younger, but she withdrew in 2008 when she was 15 to take part in homeschooling. That was the same year she was married and gave birth to her first child. There's no record of Gary Siders Jr. attending the schools. Gary Jr., Elizabeth and Christina Siders remain in the Southeast Ohio Regional Jail, charged with child endangering. They've all pleaded not guilty. Gary Sr. is in an undisclosed location,

free on bond. Attorneys for all four Siders family members have raised issues about their competency. Remember, you can read the entire case file about the Siders case on our app, Law and Crime Plus. Download it and check it out. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.