Denise Mafi, a nine-year veteran of homeschooling,
has confirmed to WND she and her children packed up
their essentials – clothes and homeschool materials
– and fled Utah over the weekend, spending 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. After the New Year she
will involve the children in a local homeschooling
process.
"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 home, furniture and other possessions left
behind in Utah? "I'm not going back unless the judge
removes the threat of arrest," she said. "I'll fight
for the cause but I'm not going to be a martyr."
The
case erupted for Mafi because of an apparent
paperwork glitch that could be the fault of her
local school district.
Now Utah home school officials say they have asked
the state Legislature to review actions by the
judge, whose office has declined comment to WND.
The confrontation developed after 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. 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. Johansen threw out the agreement Mafi
thought would resolve the charges.
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.
"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."
Mafi, who has her own copy of the required
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.
WND contacted the judge's court, but was told to
call the state judiciary's office. A spokeswoman
confirmed the situation was being reviewed, but she
couldn't comment on a pending case. The district
attorney's office didn't return a telephone request
for comment.
Tom Smith, however, 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."
Yarrington said a lawyer for the UHEA is working
on the case, and lawyers for the
Home School Legal Defense Association are
reviewing the situation.
Mafi said she is hoping she will not be required
to return to Utah for the scheduled Jan. 9 trial,
and it was unclear immediately how the fact her
children no longer remained in Utah would affect the
charges already filed.
She 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.
As WND has reported, such threats and actions
are becoming more common in Germany, but that nation
still makes homeschooling illegal under a law
launched when Hitler expressed a desire to control
the minds of youth.
A recent court ruling there, in fact, said not
only is homeschooling a basis for child endangerment
charges, but a local government was remiss in
allowing a mother to take her two children to
another country where homeschooling is legal.
Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal
Republic of Germany, has commented
on the issue on a blog, noting the government
"has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of
parallel societies that are based on religion or
motivated by different world views and in
integrating minorities into the population as a
whole."
Drautz said homeschool students' test results may
be as good as for those in school, but "school
teaches not only knowledge but also social conduct,
encourages dialogue among people of different
beliefs and cultures, and helps students to become
responsible citizens."
The German government's defense of its "social"
teachings and mandatory public school attendance was
clarified during an earlier dispute
on which WND reported, when a German family
wrote to officials objecting to police officers
picking their child up at home and delivering him to
a public school.
"The minister of education does not share your
attitudes toward so-called homeschooling," said a
government letter in response. "... You complain
about the forced school escort of primary school
children by the responsible local police officers.
... In order to avoid this in future, the education
authority is in conversation with the affected
family in order to look for possibilities to
bring the religious convictions of the family into
line with the unalterable school attendance
requirement."
Bob Unruh is
a news editor for WorldNetDaily.com.
