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Mom threatened with jail
for teaching kids at home 
Judge gives Utah woman
1 day to finish enrollment

A homeschooling mom in Utah has been ordered by a judge to enroll her children in a public school district within 24 hours, and have them in class tomorrow, all because of a paperwork glitch that very well could be the fault of the district.

The mother, Denise Mafi, told WND that she already has enrolled her children in the district, under the threat from Judge Scott Johansen, who serves in the juvenile division of the state's 7th Judicial District, that he would order her children taken away from her.

As WND has reported previously, such threats are becoming more and more common in Germany, but that nation still lives by a Nazi-era law that makes homeschooling illegal.

Mafi told WND that not only is homeschooling legal in Utah, she's been at it for nearly a decade.

So what's the problem here?

It seems that an affidavit she faxed to the local school district for the 2006-2007 school year, documenting her homeschooling plans, was lost by the district. So when she went to court with her juvenile son to have the charges dismissed (under a case held in abeyance procedure) stemming from a clash among children, she suddenly was presented with four counts against her for failing to comply with the state's compulsory education requirement.

She thought she was meeting the court's demands earlier when she enrolled her two youngest children in classes, and put her two older children in an online curriculum connected to the public school.

"Well everything fell apart in court today. I had to enroll my two oldest in public school. They start on Monday. 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.

She said her public defender had reached a plea agreement she thought would be satisfied by her action, an agreement hammered out with the prosecutor. However, the judge rejected everything, she told WND.

"It is a long story but basically it boils down to the school district says I didn't file my homeschool affidavit last year. I faxed it to the school district office on Oct. 27, 2006. Somehow it was lost. I have my copy," she said on the forum.

"The judge is very anti-homeschooling. Stated last week that homeschool was a failure. I am a total nervous wreck," she said.

She is part of the Utah Home Education Association and she was seeking advice from that organization, but officials could not be reached Friday or Saturday by WND. She is not a member of the international organization concerned with homeschooling called Home School Legal Defense Association, but a spokesman for the organization told WND officials were reviewing the situation, and the initial reaction was that the prosecution of the woman was simply outrageous.

Mafi also told WND that the judge's other demands are that her children are not allowed to miss school unless they have a notice from a doctor, and the judge initially wanted to issue an order that she was not allowed to move out of his jurisdiction for two years.

"This is all because the school district says they never received my 2006-2007 homeschool affidavit. I have a copy of the signed affidavit. I have already received my exemption for the 2007-2008 school year," she said.

A WND call to the prosecutor in the case did not get a response, nor did other judicial officials respond to inquiries about the situation.

Mafi told WND the worst part is that because it is a misdemeanor, Utah law does not allow her to demand a jury trial. But it also carries with it a maximum penalty of six months in jail, on each of the four charges.

She said she had received a confirmation the fax to the school was received when she sent it, but likes to clean out her paperwork before the start of a new school year, and apparently had disposed of it.

She said she has asked her public defender to work on a complaint against the judge and she's trying to raise funds to have a private lawyer continue her case.

"If it was any other person in the state, they can put their children in an online public school and it's acceptable," she told WND. "I can't do it. I cannot pull my children out and put them in a private school of my choice."

"He [the judge] just does not want them under my supervision," she said.

Mafi said the state has made no allegation of education neglect, and her children are performing work at grade level. But she objects to the public schools' anti-Christian world view, she said.

As WND has reported, German authorities operating under the law stemming from Hitler's desire to control the minds of youth have ruled not only that homeschooling is 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.

The recent decision from the Federal High Court in Karlsruhe, Germany's highest court, was reported by the German edition of Agence France-Presse as well as Netwerk Bildungsfreiheit, an advocacy organization for Germans who wish to homeschool.

Now the organization is noting the similarities with earlier court rulings, when Adolf Hitler was in power.

A ruling from the State Court in Hamburg dated 1936 pointed to "endangerment of the mental wellbeing of children, who would have been denied participation in the national community…," a premise that corresponds to the recent Federal Supreme Court decision, the group said.

"Only the words have been chosen somewhat differently by the Supreme Court in order to conceal the fascist spirit of the decision," the analysis said.

"It is quite chilling that the reasons stated by the authorities and courts in child custody terminations in Hitler's regime … correspond in their spirit exactly to the decision recently rendered by the Federal Supreme Court," the analysis said.

It said what courts used to call the "national community" now is the "public" and what was "participation in the national community" now has been called a justified interest in "counteracting the formation of religiously or ideologically characterized parallel societies and integrating minorities in this area."

cont'd

The analysis found that the "National Socialist (Nazi) regime" specifically targeted members of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization, including the State Court in Hamburg decision from 1936 in which judges found: "Custody rights shall be terminated for parents who, as fanatical Bible students, cannot rear their children in accordance with today's State and because this endangers the mental wellbeing of the children, who are thereby prevented from participating in the national community."

Hundreds of children were taken from their families for reasons no more important than they failed to sing Nazi songs with others, the analysis noted.

"Authorities, who interpreted the civil code according to their national socialist legal notions, considered it beyond question that the childrearing practices of Jehovah's Witnesses was 'endangerment of child welfare' and 'mental and moral neglect,'" the analysis said.

WND has reported previously how German officials targeted an American family of Baptist missionaries for deportation because they belong to a group that refuses "to give their children over to the state school system."

A teenager, Melissa Busekros, also returned to her family months after German authorities took her from her home and forcibly detained her in a psychiatric facility for being homeschooled.

And WND has reported on other families facing fines, frozen bank accounts and court-ordered state custody of their children for resisting Germany's mandatory public school requirements, which by government admission are assigned to counter "the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views."

In the case involving Melissa, a German appeals court ultimately ordered legal custody of the teenager, who was taken from her home by a police squad and detained in a psychiatric hospital for being homeschooled be returned to her family because she no longer is in danger.

The lower court's ruling had ordered police officers to take Melissa – then 15 – from her home, if necessary by force, and place her in a mental institution for a variety of evaluations. She was kept in custody from early February until April, when she turned 16 and under German law was subject to different laws.

At that point she simply walked away from the foster home where she had been required to stay and returned home.

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."

I wouldn't be surprised to see more of this happen, more often. Things are moving along as the Bible says it will.

Luke 21:12 "But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name.

Matthew 24:9-10 "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,

I think you're right.

Judge investigated for homeschooling threat
Ordered mom to enroll children in public school or lose custody


A threat by a Utah judge to take away a homeschooling mom's children if she failed to enroll them in public school, and make sure they were in attendance every day, has been escalated to the level of the state Legislature, according to a homeschooling leader.

"I can tell you there are several legislators working on this, including one on the judicial retention committee," John Yarrington, president of the Utah Home Education Association, said. "There's no excuse for this kind of bias and prejudice."

At issue are the threats issued by Judge Scott Johansen, who serves in the juvenile division of the state's 7th Judicial District

He said in a court hearing for the homeschooling mom, Denise Mafi, that he would order the removal of her children from her custody if she failed to enroll her children in the public school district and keep them in class every day, unless they had a physician's note excusing them.

Mafi, who has homeschooled for nine years, told WND that she already had enrolled the children, for fear the judge would carry out his threat.

WND earlier reported the confrontation developed after the school district apparently lost an affidavit Mafi had submitted for the 2006-2007 school year.

Mafi already had submitted her state-mandated affidavit for the 2007-2008 school year for her children, and had received her exemption. However, when she appeared in court with her juvenile son to have the charges dismissed (under a case held in abeyance procedure) stemming from a clash among children, she suddenly was presented with four counts against her for failing to comply with the state's compulsory education requirement. The counts each carry up to six months in jail.

She thought she was meeting the court's demands earlier when she enrolled her two youngest children in classes, 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.

She said her public defender earlier had reached a plea agreement she thought would be satisfied by her action, an agreement hammered out with the prosecutor. However, the judge rejected everything, she told WND.

"It is a long story but basically it boils down to the school district says I didn't file my homeschool affidavit last year. I faxed it to the school district office on Oct. 27, 2006. Somehow it was lost. I have my copy," she said on the forum.

WND contacted the judge's court, but was told to call the state judiciary's office, and a spokeswoman confirmed that 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.

Yarrington said a lawyer for the UHEA is working on the case, as are lawyers for the Home School Legal Defense Association.

He said court records show the judge told the woman that she was in court with her son "because you homeschool," even though the case at hand had nothing to do with homeschooling.

And the judge told the woman that homeschooling fails 100 percent of the time and he wasn't going to allow it.

"This guy's nuts. He has no clue," Yarrington said. "He's [stepped] on so many rights it's ridiculous."

The lawyers were awaiting the remaining paperwork in her dispute before taking their next step, Yarrington said.

He said the judge would have to be "insane" to try to get away with such actions. But he's not entirely surprised, because there have been "a quite a few of these situations," in Utah in recent years.

"We're constantly in a push and shove with districts, and sometimes with the state school board," he said, even though a recent state law limits the state and district involvement in homeschoolers' lives if they file the required affidavit annually.

He also said the group constantly advises parents to send the affidavits in by registered mail or another service that provides a written confirmation of delivery.

That apparently is what Mafi failed to do.

"Unfortunately, people get in a hurry, and they don't know about this 'Gotcha,'" used by school districts, he said.

No numbers are compiled on such situations by homeschool groups, often because homeschool parents frequently seek their own legal advice and get their situations resolved without informing the association, Yarrington said.

But he said he knows of "numbers" of such situations.

"Several districts have gotten cranked up and decided to show how tough they are," he said.

He said he was aware of one recent case in which a mother was charged with violating state law regarding educational neglect and truancy even though she had a doctor's note regarding her son's absences, a health situation that prompted her to move to homeschooling.

cont'd

"This fine principal actually called the doctor. That's way outside the bounds," Yarrington, who represents about 7,500 homeschooling families in Utah, said. "The principal gave the doctor the kid's name, and said, 'Is there any reason this kid can't come back to school?'

"The doctor, without the case in front of him, said, 'It's probably okay,'" he said.

Cracking down on homeschooling is "pretty obviously" a goal of the state, he said, although state officials disagreed.

Scott Peterson, of the state Department of Education, said there are more than 8,000 homeschooled students in the state, many of them who choose to continue to participate in various classes or activities at their local school districts.

But he admitted comments such as Johansen's have no place in education.

Asked if he thought the judge was out of line, he replied, "If that is what he said, it would be, yes."

Homeschool officials said local school districts get about $7,500 per student in tax payments, but the state said that figure was closer to $2,500, although there were additional funds that also were involved.

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.

The recent decision from the Federal High Court in Karlsruhe, Germany's highest court, was reported by the German edition of Agence France-Presse as well as Netwerk Bildungsfreiheit, an advocacy organization for Germans who wish to homeschool.

Netwerk Bildungsfreiheit says the ruling is strikingly similar to a case from 1936, when the courts ruled that those who wish to homeschool wouldn't be tolerated.

WND has reported previously how German officials targeted an American family of Baptist missionaries for deportation because they belong to a group that refuses "to give their children over to the state school system."

A teenager, Melissa Busekros, also returned to her family months after German authorities took her from her home and forcibly detained her in a psychiatric facility for being homeschooled.

And WND has reported on other families facing fines, frozen bank accounts and court-ordered state custody of their children for resisting Germany's mandatory public school requirements, which by government admission are assigned to counter "the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views."

In the case involving Melissa, a German appeals court ultimately ordered legal custody of the teenager, who was taken from her home by a police squad and detained in a psychiatric hospital for being homeschooled, be returned to her family because she no longer is in danger.

The lower court's ruling had ordered police officers to take Melissa – then 15 – from her home, if necessary by force, and place her in a mental institution for a variety of evaluations. She was kept in custody from early February until April, when she turned 16 and under German law was subject to different laws.

At that point she simply walked away from the foster home where she had been required to stay and returned home.

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."

Woman abandons home to escape public schools
Judge ordered homeschooler to enroll kids or lose custody


A Utah woman who was ordered by a juvenile court judge to enroll her children in public school or lose custody of them has abandoned her home, furniture and other possessions to escape the order.

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 another 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, and after the New Year, 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 very well 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.

Counseling 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.

At issue are the threats issued by Judge Scott Johansen, who serves in the juvenile division of the state's 7th Judicial District, and threw out the agreement Mafi thought would resolve the charges.

She 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," John Yarrington, president of the Utah Home Education Association, said. "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, and a spokeswoman confirmed that 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, as are lawyers for the Home School Legal Defense Association.

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 the anti-Christian atmosphere present. She said she and her husband had decided homeschool 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."

Well, that's a terrifying story!  I don't know what the Utah public schools teach, but where I live they are required to teach about homosexuality in every grade and in every subject---this to satisfy a 'human rights' case brought against the government, which  gave in rather than spend millions of dollars on a case it knew it couldn't win. My children are grown now, but my daughter is getting married soon, and  if she is blessed with children, I hope we will not have to face the same obstacles to home schooling as the Utah lady.
 A threat to take away someone's children is one of the strongest a government can use to control people.  And when I have read cases like this in the newspapers, it is always Christian families that are the targets.

Yes, I have seen much in the news from your area that is quite saddening. These things could be fought and without much money if the governments would not make such laws that support those atrocities. The governments are cow towing to the sinners of this world even though they may be the minority.

It is a sign of the times though and we, as Christians, can expect much more of it to come.

Praise God though that we know who will win in the end.

Homeschooler's trial date abandoned 
Mom who fled state accused of failing to file district affidavit

A trial date for a homeschooling mom from Utah who fled the state when a judge threatened to take away custody of her children has been vacated, officials have confirmed.

A lawyer with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which actually became involved in the case after it was well advanced, told WND that parties in the case against Denise Mafi by stipulation had vacated a trial date scheduled this week, and no new court date has been set.

Mafi had fled her Carbon County, Utah, home after a judge had ordered her to enroll her children with a public school within a day or he would remove then from her custody.

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 is getting her four children involved in another homeschooling program.

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.

Charges against her stemmed from what she has described as a paperwork mixup. She says she faxed a required notification of her homeschooling plans to her local school district; officials there say they never received it.

While Mafi's case isn't yet fully resolved, officials with the HSLDA confirm that another situation with similar circumstances was successfully resolved with the case being dismissed.

In the second case, an unidentified homeschooling mother was facing criminal counts for failing to enroll her daughter in a local public school.

"Though the mother had been properly notifying the school district for the past two years that she was homeschooling her 12-year-old daughter, she inadvertently delayed notifying for the 2006-2007 school year until February 2007," according to the organization's report on the situation.

"The district decided that failure to file the affidavit before the first day of the public school year was an automatic criminal violation of the state's compulsory school attendance law. Yet Utah's home education statute does not specify a filing deadline, requiring only that an affidavit be sent to the district 'annually,'" the HSLDA said.

The case eventually was dismissed with prejudice by Utah Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth Lindsley.

According to attorney Frank Mylar, who worked on the case in Utah, the result "is a great victory for all homeschoolers in Utah."

He said he's hopeful that the message for school districts is that they cannot intimidate families who may inadvertently file their notice after the school year begins.

Mylar, president of the Utah Christian Home Educators, also is working with the HSLDA on the Mafi case, officials said earlier.

When Mafi fled, 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 did confirm she would be available for scheduled court appearances.

In her new location, she obtained an empty home and spent part the Christmas holiday period finding beds for her children and herself and shampooing carpets. But she was adamant about homeschooling.

"My kids are not going to public school. They are not going where Jesus isn't welcome," she said.

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 … 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.

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.