Conservative Fire Spreads With School Board Sparks : Education: In an Idaho town, what began as a fight over a talk on AIDS turned into ideological warfare.

When conservative parents objected to a discussion of AIDS in sixth-grade classes here two years ago, they triggered a rancorous battle that began over who should control the education of their children and quickly spread to such broader issues as civil rights protections for homosexuals.

Once-sleepy school board meetings turned into jammed forums for angry exchanges over homosexuality and morals. Students demonstrated on behalf of teachers who were suspended for inviting lesbians to class. Dueling parent organizations sprang to life, choosing sides and trading accusations.

The culture war had arrived in this town of 10,000 a few miles west of Boise, the state capital. With it came the national warriors of the religious right.

Citizens for Excellence in Education, a conservative Christian group based in Costa Mesa, Calif., demanded a criminal investigation of a school nurse who discussed AIDS with sixth-graders. During a school board election campaign, Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition distributed a voter guide that read like a moral litmus test.

“We’re in a war literally for the hearts and minds and souls of our children,” said Robert Aldridge, who heads the Meridian chapter of Citizens for Excellence. “There are teachers out there that think they know better how to raise our children.”

On the other side of this war is an alliance of moderate to liberal parents and the National Education Assn. For advice and strategy, they have turned to such groups as People for the American Way, a Washington-based coalition of liberal opponents of the religious right.

The fight here began in the schools, but the religious right moved to a broader battlefield. Building on the school turmoil earlier this year, some of the same conservative groups joined in a protest against homosexual rights by proposing a statewide initiative, now scheduled for next year, that would prohibit civil rights protection for gays and lesbians.

“We suspect that what is happening here is all part of a long-range plan by the religious right in America,” said Jill Kuraitis, a political consultant working against the anti-gay initiative and a veteran of the school fight.

Robert Hoover, a retired Army colonel who heads the Christian Coalition and Citizens for Excellence in Education in Boise, sees both battles as part of the same war. “AIDS, homosexuality and keeping parents out of the curriculum are the same liberal agenda,” he said.

In mid-November, conservatives won a victory when the Idaho School Boards Assn. approved a resolution to keep instruction about “cultural diversity” and “tolerance” out of state curriculum requirements. The resolution, asking state lawmakers to grant authority over those matters to local school boards, was sponsored by the Meridian School Board, whose members argued that such instruction threatens family values.

Meridian fits an increasingly familiar pattern, and the battle for control of the schools in this conservative community offers important lessons on the effect of the culture war nationally. The school board now has a 4-1 conservative majority.

Two years of strife have left teachers gun shy. Many avoid potentially controversial subjects in class and restrict course material. A song about recycling was cut from a skit because of fears it would violate guidelines on teaching about the environment. Parental permission slips were required for fourth-graders to discuss last year’s presidential election. At one point, teachers were forbidden to answer any questions about AIDS or teach sex education.

“This all leads to a lack of confidence by the teachers that they can do what is best for students,” said Ed Wardwell, president of the local teachers’ union. “Students ask questions and you have to stop and think, Am I going to get a complaint from a parent or the school board if I answer?”

Idaho, where traditional values endure and traditional rules are enforced, was ripe for the culture war. An old joke defines an Idaho liberal as someone who wants the roads paved. George Bush carried the state in the 1992 presidential election, with Bill Clinton finishing only one percentage point ahead of Ross Perot.

At the same time, Idaho’s booming economy is expanding from agriculture to high-tech and tourism, attracting residents with new ideas. From 1987 to 1993, employment rose 27% and personal income was up 36%. Last year, Idaho led the nation in the rate of job growth.

Many of the newcomers are drawn by the tourism mantra, “Idaho Is What America Was.” But to many old-timers, this influx threatens to turn Idaho into what the rest of America has become. This clash of cultures can be seen clearly in Meridian, the hub of a rural community that is slowly being consumed by Boise.

“People who were formerly empowered in the community are very threatened by the new kinds of people moving in, and they strike back with a political movement,” said Todd Shallat, a history professor at Boise State University. “It’s a nostalgic attempt to hold on to traditional values.”

The tension might have remained buried except for Magic Johnson.

When the basketball star announced in November of 1991 that he had the AIDS virus, youngsters here were as shaken as kids everywhere. At Lowell Scott Middle School, sixth-grade classes held a session with the school nurse.

“I told the students that AIDS is hard to get unless you are participating in high-risk behavior and universal precautions make it even harder,” said Mary Schwartzman, the nurse. “The only reference to ‘safe sex’ or condoms was in response to questions regarding how Magic Johnson had contracted the HIV virus.”

In the culture war, fact easily gives way to rumor. The following day, a lone parent came to school and asked that his child be excused from such discussions in the future. A week later, a letter to the school board wrongly accused Schwartzman of demonstrating a condom.

The controversy exploded a month later. Robert L. Simonds, the national president of Citizens for Excellence, wrote the school board demanding an investigation and threatening a lawsuit because the nurse had allegedly taught students how to use a condom.

“It is an obvious attempt to impose Mrs. Schwartzman’s beliefs on the students in violation of school policy,” wrote Simonds.

The administration issued a gag order: “Until further notice we direct district personnel to avoid discussing with students or teaching students anything relating to sex education, sexually transmitted disease or HIV/AIDS,” it said.

More than 2,000 high school students from the sprawling Meridian school district took to the streets in support of AIDS education. Hundreds of calls poured into the school offices. The state’s largest newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, wrote an editorial demanding the return of AIDS discussions.

The controversy did not end even in February, 1992, when Schwartzman was cleared of violating any law or school policy and the administration relented on the gag order.

The school board adopted policies to restrict teachers and increase the rights of parents. For instance, the board would approve all instruction in health classes and parents would be notified a month before any classroom presentation so that they could pull their children out of the class.

The board also issued instructions for teaching about the environment that specified: “Discussion should not reflect negative attitudes against business or industry who do the best job under present regulations considering economic realities.”

Steve Givens was school board president then. Sitting in his comfortable ranch house recently, he defended the policies as consistent with community values.

“We have to spray crops here, so it doesn’t do any good to teach kids that spraying is bad,” said Givens, whose ancestors arrived in covered wagons. “You don’t pit children against the values of their parents. When a teacher starts teaching children how they should think, that’s when it becomes objectionable.”

The teachers’ union began compiling a list of incidents it said reflected the new atmosphere. Photos of Michelangelo’s “David” and the Sistine Chapel were removed temporarily from a slide show after objections to nudity. A poster about the Bill of Rights from the American Civil Liberties Union was removed from a classroom after a parent objected. A program on multiculturalism was canceled because of fears the audience would be too hostile.

“When I came here to teach 10 years ago, it was one of the most progressive districts in the state,” teacher Lee McGlinsky said. “Now we seem to be stepping back into the 18th Century.”

Battle lines solidified in the fall of 1992 after two lesbians spoke about their lifestyle to three high school classes. The outcry was immediate. Angry parents were on the phone to school officials an hour after the class ended. By 10 o’clock that night, all three teachers had been suspended.

Students held rallies for the suspended teachers, and so did 1,000 parents who supported the disciplinary action. The teachers were reinstated, but out of that rally grew Partners, a conservative group with links to religious organizations.

Parents on the other side organized Voices for Education. “The board seemed to be bending over backwards to appease a certain group of parents from a certain persuasion,” said Anne Best, a parent and novice activist who helped found Voices.

Sides were chosen. Their objective was the May 18 school board election in which all five seats would be up for grabs.

“We saw the election as an opportunity to get rid of these nuts,” said Wardwell, the teachers’ union president.

Barbara Youngstrom, an organizer of Partners, saw the election as a referendum of a different sort. “It would settle the question of whether or not the board’s actions represented a small minority or reflected the views of the community.”

The fight that Citizens for Excellence had helped start was picked up by the Christian Coalition, a 450,000-member religious group that has staked out schools as its primary battleground.

As a nonprofit organization, the coalition cannot endorse political candidates. But it trains thousands of conservative operatives at seminars from New York City to Oakland, Calif., and distributes election guides that spell out where candidates stand on moral and religious topics.

Six weeks before the Meridian election, the group held a three-day training seminar in Boise. It also distributed a voter guide listing candidate positions on the issues polarizing Meridian: Should parents have final say on curriculum; should homosexuals be allowed to speak in classrooms; should abstinence be the only method taught to avoid transmitting sexual diseases?

“We seek to reverse the moral decay that threatens our nation by making government more responsive to the concerns of people with biblical values,” said the coalition’s voter guide.

The state and local teachers’ unions joined with Voices for Education. Consultants were hired to direct a $10,000 advertising campaign. Strategy was shaped with advice from People for the American Way, the liberal civil rights group.

“I’ve always had lots of conservative friends, but all of a sudden people looked at you differently,” said Best, the Voices founder. “All our differences were out in the open and it got very personal.”

On May 18, long lines snaked out of the polls as 8,062 people voted, by far the largest turnout in Meridian history. The conservatives won a resounding victory, increasing their majority on the five-member board to four seats from three.

The next day, Givens, the school board president, fielded congratulatory calls from politicians statewide.

“Everybody knew what I stood for, and my reelection sent a message across the state,” he said. “Parents want to have people accountable to them for what they teach their children.”

The board promptly made plans to increase the role of parents in determining curriculum and to “eliminate (courses) without academic or vocational value.”

Board members said the plan was designed to emphasize basic education. Some teachers fear it is an implicit warning: Toe the line or find your classes eliminated.