Since Aug. 28, the number of homeschool affidavits filed for children in Colorado City, Ariz., has soared from 14 to 413.
The town, along with the adjoining city of Hildale, Utah, is home to members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
"We get an average of 40 a day," said Michael File, Mohave County school superintendent. "It is an interesting turn of events but we're glad it's happening."
The affidavits run "the whole gamut, from kindergarten through 12th grade," File said.
Similar information was not available from the Washington County School District for residents of Hildale. LuAnne Forrest, two weeks into a new job as student services director, said the district has not kept well-organized records about homeschool enrollments.
In both states, there is minimal oversight of homeschooling. Utah parents are required to file exemption certificates with the local school board but there is little enforcement.
Under Arizona law, parents who choose to home school are required to file an "affidavit of intent" and a birth certificate for each child. Until last week, most parents in the community ignored that requirement.
"We've sent stuff up there yearly to get it done and it hadn't been done," File said. "I am not sure what clicked the wheels into motion but they are doing it."
Call for enforcement: It may have something to do with comments made by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard during his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in July. He said that it appeared that "hundreds of [FLDS] children are not receiving an education."
He noted that only a dozen homeschool affidavits had been filed by FLDS parents and that children were routinely seen outside their homes playing during school hours.
"I am enlisting the help of our state school authorities and community advocates to enforce truancy laws and persuade parents to enroll their children in school," Goddard said.
That threat apparently reverberated in the twin towns.
FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop acknowledged Friday that parents were encouraged to register their children by a principal within the community's education system.
Most FLDS parents sent their children to public schools until 2000, when former sect leader Rulon T. Jeffs instructed them to begin using private or home schools. Enrollment in school districts on both sides of the stateline plummeted overnight; many of the certified teachers, all FLDS members, also left the districts to take jobs in the sect's private schools.
The FLDS shutdown private schools in the twin towns in 2006 and began relying solely on homeschools - something members said was aimed at shielding children and families from media and government scrutiny following the arrest of sect leader Warren S. Jeffs.
Mixed views: In Arizona, parents who homeschool their children are "free to use whatever curriculum they wish," File said.
The compulsory education law in Utah requires school attendance for children ages 6 to 18; in Arizona, children must attend until age 16 or completion of 10th grade.
There is mixed information about the quality of the FLDS curriculum. Some child advocates say many children in the community receive an inadequate education that ends by 10th grade or sooner.
Michelle Benward, director of New Frontiers for Families in southern Utah, has worked with dozens of FLDS teenagers who have left the twins towns. Most have deficits in their educations, she said.
"But they are really bright and with a little direction [get up to speed] quickly," Benward said.
With assistance of her program, eight teens have completed GEDs and another are working on the degrees; another two teens have finished high school and six are currently in school.
The Diversity Foundation in Salt Lake County also has assisted FLDS teens with school.
In other FLDS families, education and even college are encouraged, according to FLDS members.
"Different people put different priority on what children are taught," Jessop said. Some emphasize trade skills, while others push academic learning.
Jessop said that allegations that the FLDS discourage college educations is "another one of those blatant untruths." He said he was aware of a half dozen young women from the community who are currently enrolled at Southern Utah University.
In Texas, authorities were able to complete educational assessments on some FLDS children while they were recently in state custody. Jessop said that some children who were tested performed above grade level in some subjects and but were not "as strong" in other subjects.
A Texas caseworker testified in May that a group of teenage girls who were living at the Yearning for Zion Ranch - including Teresa Jeffs, daughter of the sect leader - were assessed during their two-month stay at High Sky Ranch in Midland.
That assessment found the children were "well beyond target," the caseworker said.
