LOCAL ELECTIONS : Redondo Board Aspirants Renew an Old Debate

By GEORGE HATCH

Feb. 24, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Officially, debate in Redondo Beach over the “Impressions” series of school texts ended last February, when the city’s elementary school board voted unanimously to continue their use.

But, as three incumbents on the Redondo Beach City School District board prepare to face challengers in the March 5 election, there is renewed debate about the series, which some parents denounced last year as immoral and unsettling to children.

The “Impressions” debate, along with disagreement about sex education and whether school board members should be subject to term limits, are among the most contentious questions in the campaign. Proof came Thursday night in a candidates’ forum at Alta Vista Elementary School.

After largely agreeing with incumbents on a wide range of subjects, the two challengers present--Melinda Stone and Donna Carrico--criticized the series, with Stone charging that the books “are riddled with fearful situations.”

The three incumbents--Valerie Dombrowski, Bart Swanson and Sylvia Zellers--sharply disagreed, saying that the books have won strong acceptance among students, teachers and parents. Warned Dombrowski: “I would never like to see censorship in the school system.”

This year’s school board race is not likely to be an extensive, high-finance affair. All six candidates have notified the county registrar-recorder that they do not expect their fund raising or spending to exceed $1,000.

That could accentuate the natural advantages of incumbency enjoyed by Dombrowski, 55, a retiree who is seeking a fourth four-year term; Swanson, 40, a Lawndale city worker who was elected to the board in 1987, and Zellers, 52, who sells racetrack programs and is running for a third term.

Still, the campaign has to provide more competition than the “non-contest” held four years ago, in which Dombrowski, Zellers and Swanson were the only candidates for the at-large seats.

The difference is the appearance on the political scene of Stone, 36, a homemaker; Carrico, 40, a chiropractor, and Pat Safani, 37, a homemaker and part-time secretary in a medical office.

On many issues, the challengers and incumbents agree.

All six candidates support the so-called “split unification” plan to create a kindergarten through 12th-grade school district in Redondo Beach. Currently, the city’s elementary schools are grouped in a single kindergarten through eighth-grade district and its high school, Redondo Union, is part of the three-city South Bay Union High School District.

The six candidates also favor keeping control of surplus school sites, in case this year’s unexpected 250-student increase in enrollment marks the start of a surge of youngsters into local grade schools. District enrollment now stands at 4,275.

And all six counsel against big-ticket spending, especially given Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposal to freeze the state’s per-student allocations--the main source of income for the district’s $17.5 million operating budget.

They also support the district’s policy of allowing parents to send their children to any of its elementary schools--space permitting--and its dress code, which prohibits students from wearing gang attire.

But there is also disagreement--most prominently over the “Impressions” texts, a compendium of excerpts from the works of authors, including Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll.

Two challengers, Safani and Stone, were members of the Coalition of Concerned Parents, a group of mostly conservative Christian residents that tried to get the district to stop using the books.

The group denounced the books as immoral and satanic, citing a poem about excreta-eating pigs, as well as stories and poems about monsters, witches and magical spells.

Safani and Stone, joined by Carrico, say the school board’s decision last February to stick with the textbooks, despite these objections, demonstrated that the board is insensitive to parents’ concerns.

“They’re continually saying ‘We’re sensitive to the parents,’ ” Carrico said Friday. “But then in a specific case where parents had serious concerns, they overrule the parents and do what they want.”

On the sex education issue, Safani and Stone charge that the school district does not emphasize abstinence sufficiently. Safani objects that in one video used by the district, an AIDS patient urges the use of condoms.

Though the video states that the only safe sex is no sex, she said the advice given by the AIDS patient sent students a “mixed message.” Safani said in an interview last week: “We should teach them that the only safe sex is not to have it.”

All three challengers say the board’s positions on sex education and the textbook series illustrate the need to limit school board members to two four-year terms. Currently, there is no restriction on the number of terms a board member can serve.

“The longer a person stays in (office), the less accountable he or she feels to the community,” Stone said in her closing remarks at Thursday’s candidates forum.

The incumbents reject the proposal, saying on-the-job experience is crucial to school board members, because they have to draft budgets, manage surplus property, negotiate labor contracts and resolve personnel problems, among other complicated tasks.

“Being a school board member is more than coming in, sitting down and saying ‘Yea’ or ‘Nay,’ ” Swanson said in an interview last week. “The more you’re there, the more you learn about the position and education itself. You’ve got to have quite a bit of knowledge.”

The board incumbents consider themselves in closer touch with the community than the challengers. They said that collectively they have a far longer history of residence and civic involvement in Redondo Beach.

Zellers points out that Carrico sends her grade school-age daughter to a private school. Carrico says her daughter has vision problems and needs the small class size that the private school offers.

“I have concern about someone running for school board who doesn’t appear to have enough faith in the school district to put her child in its schools,” Zellers said. She also faulted Carrico, who moved to Redondo Beach from Manhattan Beach last year, for running for the school board so soon.

“It bothers me when someone moves to a community and says, ‘I want to get involved so I think I’ll get involved in the school board,’ someone who has never served on one of our committees.”

The incumbents all have rejected the view that a significant number of parents believe the district’s sex education is poor and that the “Impressions” texts are disturbing to children. The objections, they said, come from a small minority of parents who, if they had their way, would hobble the district curriculum in attempting to purge it of the writings they find objectionable.

THE CANDIDATES--REDONDO BEACH CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

Donna Carrico

Challenger

Age: 40

Occupation: Chiropractor

Valerie Dombrowski

Incumbent

Age: 55

Occupation: Retiree

Pat Safani

Challenger

Age: 37