NICKTOWN — When thousands of students returned to the classroom nearly two months ago, 22 school-age children stayed at home – where they have been since March following the court-ordered padlocking of their Barr Township schoolhouse because of inadequate outhouses.

They are members of the Swartzentruber Amish, an ultra conservative sect that moved to Cambria County from Wayne County, Ohio, a decade ago. The 20-family congregation living in the northern part of the county is the only Swartzentruber group in Pennsylvania. The sect members are known for their pacifist ways.

The Swartzentrubers and the state appear headed on a collision course which could result in fines, or even land the parents of the unschooled children behind bars.

Officials at the state Department of Education have started a push to get the sect’s children into a classroom.

“The Northern Cambria School District has been notified,” said Leah Harris, department of education spokeswoman. “They (the home school district) have to make sure the children are getting educated in some manner.”

‘We don’t know who they are’

While the Swartzentrubers live in a couple of municipalities, all of the children of school age appear to reside in Barr Township.

That fact places responsibility for their education on Northern Cambria School District, where Superintendent Tom Estep is frustrated.

“We don’t know who they are.

“We can’t correspond with them if we don’t have any information about them,” Estep said. “We don’t have any mechanism for going out into the countryside and searching for these students.”

The matter has been turned over to district Solicitor Gary Jubas, who said he is headed back to the state Department of Education for guidance.

“I have no idea where they are, who they are and how many there is,” Jubas said. “They’re not registered. They’re not being educated. That’s the sad part.”

Finding some of the Amish wasn’t too hard late last week.

While they tend not to talk freely with the “English,” – their label for all non-Amish – they are congenial and nonconfrontational.

They answer questions and if given enough time, even ask questions in return.

“This is not something we want,” said church elder Andy Miller as he gathered bits of hay in a field on the Barr/Blacklick township line.

Miller is the father of John Miller, who was banned – along with his wife, Susan, and young children – from their Blacklick Township house under court order in May because it failed to meet Cambria County sewage and building codes.

Also talking was Samuel Yoder, an elder whose daughter Mary, her husband, Joely Swartzentruber, and their young children were also banned from the Barr Township house they recently built.

‘Only to the eighth grade’

Yoder was one of a handful of Amish men constructing a corn crib on the Joely Swartzentruber farm when he spoke.

Miller and Yoder were clearly distressed with news of the state intervention and potential court action over the schooling issue.

Yoder repeatedly said he would need time to think about the situation and talk to others.

He said there have been no attempts at home education since the schoolhouse was closed in March and landowner Andrew Swartzentruber spent three months in jail for failing to comply with Cambria County sewage laws.

Of concern is a state requirement that a teacher must have a high school diploma or the equivalent. Yoder said he was not aware of that stipulation.

“But we don’t have anyone like that,” Yoder said. “Ours go only to the eighth grade.”

Yoder said the sect leaders always choose a teacher who has an interest in helping the children and one who earned good grades while in the system.

He cited a 1972 United States Supreme Court case – Yoder vs. Wisconsin – allowing Amish young people to leave the educational system through completion of the eighth grade.

The court found the Amish sincerely believed that high school attendance was contrary to the Amish religion and way of life.

They felt they would endanger their own salvation and that of their children by complying with the law, according to the decision.

That high court ruling does not change the qualifications for a homeschool teacher, Harris said.

“Going eight years then withdrawing, then no, I could not homeschool my child,” Harris said.

‘In a community environment’

Homeschooling is not an option the Amish favor, said Don Kraybill, director for the Center for Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County.

“They want their kids in a community environment,” Kraybill said.

“There often is only one perspective in a family.”

Problems with getting the children educated is a ripple effect of closing the school, he said.

“It’s not an educational issue, it’s an outhouse issue,” Kraybill said.

Ebensburg attorney David Beyer represented the Amish recently when they again went before Judge Norman Krumenacker in an unsuccessful attempt to convince him to get the school and homes open

Beyer said he has plans to visit the sect’s leaders and talk to them again.

Krumenacker said the Amish could bring in a portable toilet on a temporary basis to get the schoolhouse reopened. But that is a step they are not willing to take.

Beyer sees no simple answers.

“They don’t look at this the same way the English do,” he said

“I know they’re reluctant to drift away from their religious beliefs any further than they already have.”