A Brazilian couple has been sentenced to 50 days in jail after homeschooling their two daughters, in a case that has ignited a struggle over parental rights, state energy and ideological management in schooling.
Audato and Ieda Denardi have been convicted of “mental neglect” after a São Paulo legal courtroom dominated they educated their daughters at residence with out following a state-approved curriculum.
The women are 15 and 11.
Based on Alliance Defending Freedom Worldwide, which is offering authorized help to the household, the courtroom faulted the dad and mom for failing to incorporate applications on “gender and intercourse schooling” and “tolerance and variety” of their daughters’ schooling.
The courtroom additionally claimed the dad and mom did not correctly combine the women into Brazilian tradition, citing their choice for spiritual and classical music over widespread entice or “sertanejo” music.
Isabel Monteiro, the household’s protection legal professional, mentioned the choose made an “ideological resolution to convict them” based mostly largely on the older daughter’s choice for sacred music as an alternative of mainstream music that always comprises express lyrics.
The Denardis have been sentenced by a decrease courtroom in April.
They continue to be free whereas interesting what’s believed to be the primary legal prosecution of its variety in Brazil.
🚨 Dad and mom despatched to jail for homeschooling!
A Brazilian courtroom sentenced two dad and mom to jail after they homeschooled their youngsters and refused to show the federal government’s mandated “gender and intercourse schooling” curriculum. @Lauren_Gideon from @ClassicalConv breaks it down. 👇 pic.twitter.com/p2loYWmz3t
— Alex Newman (@ALEXNEWMAN_JOU) July 7, 2026
The couple advised Fox Information Digital they started homeschooling in 2020 through the COVID-19 pandemic after concluding their daughters’ faculties weren’t giving them a correct schooling.
Ieda mentioned the women thrived at residence, so the household continued homeschooling.
After the Denardis formally withdrew their daughters from faculty in 2022, state officers started making residence visits and pressuring them to re-enroll the women.
The couple mentioned they have been shocked by the jail sentence and by no means anticipated to face jail for attempting to provide their daughters a greater schooling.
The women are each completed pianists and converse a number of languages, in accordance with the household.
Even state prosecutors urged the courtroom to acquit the dad and mom.
After an impartial instructional psychologist evaluated the kids, prosecutors concluded the women confirmed no indicators of neglect and have been thriving socially and academically.
The Denardi household Screenshot. (Alliance Defending Freedom Worldwide)
Monteiro mentioned the household offered greater than 3,000 pages of proof displaying they’d not intellectually deserted their youngsters.
However the choose rejected the prosecution’s advice.
Based on ADF Worldwide, the choose accused the dad and mom of “utilizing their daughters as pawns in an ideological battle, subjecting them to a type of unregulated schooling, the effectiveness and high quality of which lack enough metrics throughout the Brazilian authorized system, whereas fully excluding the State’s involvement.”
The sentence has positioned an infinite emotional burden on the household, Audato Denardi mentioned.
“It has affected lots… Now we have now to sleep and get up on daily basis enthusiastic about that we will go to jail,” he advised Fox Information Digital, noting {that a} 50-day sentence would drive them away from their jobs and their metropolis.
Audato mentioned the household’s best worry is what would occur to the kids if each dad and mom are jailed.
“That’s our greatest drawback in all these things, as a result of we’re going to have to remain 50 days with out them and who’s going to stick with them?” he mentioned.
The case exposes the authorized limbo surrounding homeschooling in Brazil.
In 2019, Brazil’s Supreme Courtroom dominated that homeschooling was not unconstitutional however mentioned it wanted to be regulated by lawmakers.
The Home of Representatives handed a regulatory framework invoice in 2022, nevertheless it stalled within the Senate.
That has left homeschooling households caught between a courtroom ruling that didn’t ban the apply outright and a legislature that has did not create clear guidelines.
The Denardi household’s attraction will probably be heard by the seventh Legal Chamber of the Courtroom of Justice of the State of São Paulo, ADF Worldwide mentioned.
“We’re ready for actual justice and the courtroom to provide us this acquittal that we expect we deserve as a result of the state can’t change regulation [based on] ideology,” Audato mentioned.
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