County Issue / What Should Schools...

Norman Brekke, Superintendent, Oxnard Elementary School District

“I think that instructional material should be consistent with the California Department of Education’s frameworks for the various subject areas. These are determined by experts in the various academic fields, and I believe that their judgments are a good reference or index to determine whether or not instructional materials are appropriate. I think that whenever there are challenges to particular texts or sections of textbooks or supplementary material in our schools, there ought to be a hearing process before the governing board of that respective school district, and I think that the governing board in making a decision should likewise utilize the state frameworks. Clearly, if there are materials that are obscene or utilize language that is inappropriate for certain grade levels, those kinds of decisions I think appropriately rest with the governing board. But I think an enormous amount of caution needs to be given to the limitation of literary works that are generally considered to be classics and have found an appropriate place over the years in our classrooms.

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Tom Baldwin, Moorpark school board member

“Elected public officials should have a fairly good idea of what the tenor of their community is and, as a result, should be able to make a determination as to whether a given piece of material belongs in their community or not. A basic tenet of our democracy is that the public school classroom should mirror the moral and ethical values of the community in which you find it, and the people who have to be able to judge that best are the members of that community who have been elected to represent the community in terms of making those decisions, and that would be the school board. If the board member finds that the teacher is more in tune with the majority of the community, then he should back the teacher’s decision to use the material. If they find that the material is not in tune with community values, then it should be removed from use. When a piece of currently in-use curriculum material is challenged by a member of the community, the board member has to have his first loyalty to the community itself and not to his employee.”

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Doug Crosse, Simi Valley school board member

“To be very honest, our system for reviewing materials is probably among the best that I have seen at any district level. We have an extensive committee process, which includes the community and parent groups in the review of both new materials and existing materials. The bottom line is a board member is elected to represent, and not impose their own personal will or value system. Our responsibility, first and foremost, is to reflect the values of the community. How do you gauge that? I think you have to be out in the community and you have to be listening to those parent groups and looking at election results and talking to friends in the community. I think that a board member who is sincerely interested in reflecting the view of the community is going to be out in the community and will be listening more than talking. That’s the key ingredient to being a good board member serving as an elected representative; you have to be out there.”

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Charles Weis, Ventura County superintendent of schools

“Of course, the ultimate decision regarding materials is the responsibility of the school board. They are charged with listening to community members and parents and the educators and sorting out the educational value versus the perceptions and belief system of the community members. I think the way to do it is to try to get a broad base of representation of the parents and community members to get a handle on their perceptions about the material, and then try to get a broad base from the educational community and then do exactly what the question asks, weigh the educational value versus the concerns. The critical part of that, at least in my experience, has been to make sure that all the people talking about the materials have reviewed them all totally and carefully. Many times, individuals or groups have really only seen a portion of materials or taken something out of context. It’s critical that it is seen in context and taken as a whole.”

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Frank DePasquale, Assistant superintendent for instruction, Moorpark Unified School District

“I think that the works have to have ethical standards. They have to have standards of literature and standards that further cultural values--those need to be the benchmark used to review the material. What’s the message? Is it an ethical message? Is it a message that furthers the cultural values that we have accepted in this society? The readings we select will have a philosophical message that we need to discuss in light of what is best for our society. . . . The bottom line is a district should make a decision based on professional input from educators at the school site as well as parents who have children in the school system. We do have in our policy a clause that says that an individual student may be excused by the principal or the superintendent from using challenged materials after the parent or guardian has presented a written complaint. There are different levels of maturity within the ranks of students, so one parent may think that material will be appropriate for their child while another parent may not, and they have the right to make those decisions.”