Parents sentenced to 50 days in prison for homeschooling their children
Daughters are accomplished pianists who speak multiple languages, but aren't fans of hip-hop which upset the judge
A couple in Brazil have become the first parents in the country to be criminally convicted for homeschooling their children, sentenced to 50 days in prison after a judge ruled their curriculum failed to include state-approved content on gender, sexuality and cultural diversity.
Audato and Ieda Denardi were convicted of “intellectual neglect” by a lower court in São Paulo in April, according to the Christian legal advocacy group ADF International that is supporting the family’s appeal.
The sentencing judge found that the home education program for their daughters, aged 15 and 11, didn't include instruction on “gender and sex education” or “tolerance and diversity.”
The court also cited the girls’ musical tastes as evidence of cultural neglect. Because neither daughter expressed a liking for “trap,” an American hip-hop sub-genre popular in Brazil, or “sertanejo,” a Brazilian folk genre, the judge concluded the parents had failed to provide adequate cultural education.
Both daughters are accomplished pianists who speak multiple languages.
In his written decision, the judge accused the couple of “using their daughters as pawns in an ideological struggle, subjecting them to a form of unregulated education, the effectiveness and quality of which lack adequate metrics within the Brazilian legal system, while completely excluding the State’s involvement.”
The conviction came despite the prosecutor recommending acquittal.
After hearing witnesses and reviewing the girls’ social and academic development, the prosecutor concluded that the parents had not neglected their children.
An independent educational psychologist also found no sign of neglect.
The Denardis’ sentence will be suspended while they appeal to the 7ª Câmara Criminal do Tribunal de Justiça do Estado de São Paulo, the highest criminal court in São Paulo state.
Ieda Denardi said she could not “conceive a more dictatorial state than the one that wants me in jail because I chose to exercise my right to direct the education and upbringing of my daughters.”
She and her husband said they were hopeful the court would recognize their right to choose their children’s education and overturn the conviction.
Julio Pohl, legal counsel for Latin America at ADF International, said the prosecutor had heard witnesses and recommended acquittal, an independent educational psychologist had found no sign of neglect, and the girls themselves had attested to rigorous daily education.
“The judge convicted anyway — because a 15-year-old said she finds some music lyrics morally questionable, and because the curriculum didn’t include state-approved content on gender,” Pohl said, calling the outcome “a grotesque abuse of the criminal law.”
The case has drawn attention in Brazil’s Congress, where lawmakers recently held hearings on homeschooling, at which the Denardis appeared and urged legislators to pass legislation to regularize the practice.
A bill legalizing homeschooling passed the lower House of Representatives in 2022 but has since stalled in the Senate, leaving an estimated 70,000 homeschooled children and their parents in legal uncertainty.
The Denardis began homeschooling their daughters in 2020 after observing shortcomings in the public education system during pandemic-era remote learning. Since then, they said, their daughters’ academic performance had improved significantly, and the arrangement allowed the family to incorporate their faith and personal values into the children’s education.
Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that homeschooling did not violate the Constitution but held that a federal law was required to regulate it. The absence of that federal law has left parents who choose home education vulnerable to sanction. Until the Denardi conviction, such cases were treated as administrative offenses.
