A Kansas honors student’s family took local health officials to court Friday after they confined her to home for 21 days for reportedly being exposed to chicken pox.

Parents of the 14-year-old Buhler High School freshman in central Kansas alleged health officials violated state law on quarantines as well as the 14th Amendment when they confined her to home without a required written notice.

A judge agreed Friday, ruling the quarantine by the Harvey County Health Department had been issued illegally.

A timeline of events from family lawyer Jacklyn P. Paletta indicates the alleged exposure occurred Feb. 11. The girl was excluded from school Feb. 14.

Yet, it wasn’t until Feb. 23 – a Sunday morning, oddly enough – that she received official written notice from the Harvey County Health Department of a 21-day quarantine, and home confinement, ending March 5.

That belated written order, which followed a verbal notice from the neighboring Reno County Health Department, came two days after a cease-and-desist letter from Paletta demanding an end to what she argues is an illegal quarantine.

The lawsuit in Harvey County District Court was filed Monday against Buhler Unified School District 313 officials, as well as health officials from both counties. Paletta alleged in her letter that their action “constitutes an unlawful deprivation of liberty, property and due process …

“As of this writing, you have not given an adequate basis on which the quarantine is  justified. Therefore, this order is not compliant with K.S.A. 65-129c and is therefore unlawful. Your unilateral decision to prevent this child from attending school severely inhibits her ability to receive  a proper education.”

State law provides for an appeal in front of a judge on such quarantines within 72 hours of a request, which led to Friday’s hearing.

While the judge Friday threw out the health department’s quarantine, the lawsuit will continue to proceed on the family’s claims against the school district.

The girl won’t able to return to school until March 5, but she is no longer confined to her home.

“It cannot be said that it is inconvenient or impractical to honor the constitutionally protected fundamental rights of children,” Paletta said in a statement to The Heartlander. “If a school district or health department is going to take the extraordinary action of excluding a healthy, honors child from school for 21 days the child is entitled to due process.”

Quarantine, and home confinement, is an extreme measure affecting not only the supposedly exposed people, but whomever they live with as well.

“It basically makes you feel like a prisoner,” says the girl’s mother, Ann Roberts.

She says officials didn’t even make clear until Feb. 21 – a week after the girl’s being excluded from school Feb. 14 – that her daughter wasn’t just banned from school, but from leaving home.

The quarantine order from Harvey County also barred any visitors to the family home without authorization.

“Well, I think it’s utterly ridiculous,” she says of that. “What does that even mean? I can call them and ask if someone would be authorized? …

“It’s just a mess. I just don’t want it to keep happening to other people. … And if I’m gonna follow the rules, why don’t they have to follow their own laws that govern us to make things right for the American people?”

Trying to quarantine a 14-year-old while parenting other children and running a business and farm has been difficult, Roberts says.

As for academics, Roberts says her daughter is in three honors classes, but away from class lectures and being able to ask questions, she’s struggling with her sophomore-level geometry.

Not to mention the fact that the basketball player, who her mother says has been working hard on the sport since November, has been banned from the team for three weeks.

“For a perfectly asymptomatic child that has nothing wrong with her,” Roberts notes. “I shouldn’t even say ‘asymptomatic.’ That’s the wrong wording. She’s not asymptomatic. She’s not sick. There’s nothing wrong with her.”