AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Supreme Court has sided with a family accused of not teaching its children anything while waiting “to be raptured.”

Laura and Michael McIntyre began homeschooling their nine children inside the family’s El Paso motorcycle dealership more than a decade ago.

Officials say the family did not have to teach state-approved curriculum or give standardized tests.

However, problems started when a relative told authorities that he never saw the children reading, working on math, using computers or doing anything educational besides play music.

He said he heard one of them say that learning wasn’t necessary because “they were going to be raptured.”

The El Paso school district eventually asked the couple to provide proof that their children were properly educated. The family sued and an appeals court ruled against them.

The couple argued that school district officials violated their 14th Amendment rights by attempting to verify that their children were learning.

The case then headed to the state’s Supreme Court, where the justices made a 6-3 ruling on technical grounds in favor of the McIntyres.

But it didn’t answer larger constitutional questions about whether home-schooled children must be properly taught.

Justices remanded the case to lower courts, saying its constitutional questions weren’t educational policy matters. But they didn’t issue an opinion on the overall constitutionality.