Judge Allows Schools to Keep Channel One : Education: But Superior Court jurist orders new steps to ensure that students in a San Jose district are not required to watch the current events TV program and its commercials.

A judge Wednesday refused a request by state officials to bar a San Jose school district from showing the Channel One television news program and its commercials--but ordered new steps to assure students they are not required to watch.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jeremy Fogel said students must be given written notice that the program is voluntary and an opportunity to read or or to pursue some other supervised alternative to viewing the show.

In a widely awaited ruling, Fogel denied a request by state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig and other authorities for a permanent injunction that would have banned Channel One on grounds students were being unlawfully required to watch commercial advertising on the show.

The judge concluded there was insufficient evidence that teachers were forced to present the program or students coerced to view it. But Honig’s court challenge had raised the issue of “indirect coercion” that warranted action to ensure that viewing was optional, he said.

Fogel acknowledged that the public schools faced an “unprecedented fiscal emergency” and he commended “creative efforts” to ease the strain.

But, he added, “the very same emergency could, in the absence of appropriate limiting principles, lead to serious abuses such as sale of classroom time for advertising as a means of obtaining textbooks or other basic instructional materials.”

Channel One, a daily, 12-minute current events program, is seen by more than 8 million high school and middle school students nationwide. In California, 142 schools--67 public and 75 private--subscribe.

The show’s producer, Whittle Communications, sells four 30-second commercials for each program. In return for airing the show, schools receive free satellite dishes, videocassette recorders and television sets.

Honig welcomed the judge’s restrictions on the show. “This is the first time we know of that Channel One has been reined in by a state court,” he said Wednesday.

“The more people know about Channel One, with its compulsory commercials during class time, the less they like it,” Honig said. “I think (Fogel) has taken a valuable first step toward protecting the school day, which is brought to you, not by Snickers or Pepsi, but by the taxpayer.”

Jim Ritts, president of network affairs for the Whittle Education Network, called the decision “a clear victory” for local school authority and predicted that many more districts will subscribe now that a major legal challenge has been turned aside.

Ritts said the judge’s conditions for continued showing were “completely acceptable” to Whittle, noting that it was the firm’s nationwide policy to accommodate students and teachers who do not want to participate.

Elias Chamorro, principal of San Jose’s Overfelt High School, said the ruling would formalize procedures already adopted to assure the program is voluntary.

Overfelt High, the first public school in California to subscribe to Channel One, benefits not only from the show but also from the free equipment it uses for its own video productions, Chamorro said.

“Given the devastating financial problems facing our school district, we could not afford this equipment and service otherwise,” Chamorro added.

Honig, the state PTA and two teachers brought suit last December against the East Side Union High School District, seeking an injunction to bar Channel One from the classroom.

Lawyers for the district and Whittle responded that the program was being viewed voluntarily and that students, teachers and parents all could decline to participate. The commercials were a vital means of financing the show and were only incidental to its educational aims, the attorneys said.

In his 11-page ruling Wednesday, Fogel said the district could continue to show Channel One, provided that:

* Teachers are advised in writing they are not obligated to show the program and will not be punished for declining to participate.

* Students and their parents or guardians are given written notice that students may refuse to view all or parts of the show and do so without penalty.

* In lieu of watching, students are provided a regular alternative to Channel One, such as a period of silent reading.

Fogel said he may appoint a special referee to monitor the program.