A homeschooling
mom who fled her Carbon County, Utah, home because of a
judge's threat to take away her children if they were
not enrolled in the local public school district is
preparing to answer the counts that accuse her of
failing to submit last year's homeschool paperwork.
Officials with the
Home School Legal Defense Association have
confirmed they will work on the case involving
homeschooling mom Denise Mafi.
"The Home School Legal Defense Association, in
association with prominent Utah attorney, Frank
Mylar, has agreed to represent homeschooling mom,
Denise Mafi, in her upcoming truancy prosecution in
Utah's Carbon County Juvenile Court," the
organization said.
"HSLDA senior Counsel James R. Mason stated that
the attorneys are reviewing the facts and are
preparing a vigorous defense to the charges," the
group said.
As WND reported earlier, Mafi, who at that time
had had counsel from a public defender, abandoned
her home, furniture and other possessions to leave
Utah and seek refuge in another state, where she
plans to get her four children involved in a
homeschooling program after the Christmas holiday.
At that time she told WND she would not return to
Utah to retrieve her furniture and other items
unless the threat of her arrest was removed. But she
also confirmed she planned to be back in the state
for a trial scheduled on Jan. 9.
Mafi told WND she and her children had packed up
their essentials – clothes and homeschool materials
– and spent more than 50 hours on a bus trip to an
undisclosed part of the country.
There she has obtained an empty home and is
spending the Christmas break trying to find beds for
her children and herself. "We're shampooing carpets
right now. We have no furniture. We have no beds,"
she said. "But my kids are not going to public
school. They are not going where Jesus isn't
welcome."
Her plight prompted dozens of WND readers to
request a way to make a donation to her, and
HSLDA's own foundation, while not immediately
set up to transfer donations to one specific
individual, does recognize that homeschoolers may
have urgent needs, and does respond to those needs.
The
case erupted for Mafi because of an apparent
paperwork glitch that could be the fault of her
local school district.
Mafi, still married but separated from her
husband, already had begun her homeschooling plan
for the 2007-2008 year, for which she had received a
district exemption as required in Utah. Then she was
told she was being accused of four counts of failing
to abide by the state's compulsory education law,
with a penalty of up to six months in jail on each
count, because the district alleged she had not
submitted a required affidavit for the
long-completed 2006-2007 school year.
Counseled by a public defender, she thought she
was meeting the court's demands earlier when she
enrolled her two youngest children in classes in
Utah and put her two older children in an online
curriculum connected to the public school. However,
she soon learned otherwise.
"Well everything fell apart in court today. I had
to enroll my two oldest in public school. … If I
didn't the judge said I would lose custody of my
children. He threw out the plea and we go to trial
on January 9th. I have NO CHANCE with this
judge. He will find me guilty. He already has. So I
will probably be spending some time in jail. Please
pray for my children," she noted in an
online forum connected to a "Five In A Row"
homeschool curriculum she had used when her children
were younger.
Scott Johansen |
At issue are the threats issued by
Judge Scott Johansen, who serves in
the juvenile division of the state's 7th Judicial
District. He threw out the agreement Mafi
thought would resolve the charges, and then warned
her about losing her children if they were not
enrolled in the public school district, or if they
missed class without a doctor's note.
Mafi has reported, and her recollection of events
has been confirmed by attorneys, that Johansen told
her homeschooling fails 100 percent of the time and
he would not allow it. Court officials told WND the
comments didn't happen as Mafi reported, but have
been unable to provide a transcript to confirm
either version.
Mafi, who has her own copy of the required
2006-2007 affidavit, said she faxed it to the school
district office Oct. 27, 2006. But the district
alleged it didn't arrive, and Mafi failed to keep a
fax confirmation she received at the time.
Utah home school officials say they already have
asked the state Legislature to review actions by
the judge, whose office has declined comment to WND.
"I can tell you there are several legislators
working on this, including one on the judicial
retention committee," said John Yarrington,
president of the
Utah Home Education Association. "There's no
excuse for this kind of bias and prejudice."
Tom Smith, who identified himself as a friend of
the judge, wrote to WND in his defense.
"I and another local Republican official wrote to
encourage Gov. Bangerter to appoint Scott Johansen,
who was a Democrat county attorney at the time, as a
juvenile judge. Scott did not like the partisan
politics at the time, and many of his views today
tend to be more conservative," he said. "I believe
he has served our area very well in his capacity of
juvenile judge."
Smith cited an occasion when he was teaching a
number of years ago, when "some in our school wanted
to change the method of teaching to a more liberal
way; a method that had not done well in other
schools. Judge Johansen took a stand against it with
those of us who opposed the change. The result was
that several of us teachers were not required to
make the change."
Mafi has explained that her opposition to public
schools comes from what she sees as an
anti-Christian atmosphere. Mafi said she and her
husband had decided homeschooling would be their
choice even before the children reached school age.
Bob Unruh is
a news editor for WorldNetDaily.com.
