Recall Targets Vista Board’s Creationists : Education: Handling of school district by conservative Christians has been the focus of bitter feuds. The members under fire say they are being persecuted.

Since three members of a Christian right majority took control of the city’s school board in 1992, residents have feuded bitterly over the teaching of creationism, sex education and prayer in the classroom.

But a new topic has recently moved to center stage in the ongoing political debate in this conservative community of 76,000 in north San Diego County.

“Recall,” said activist parent Barbara Donovan. “We want to recall them. And we think we can.”

Targets of the recall effort are board President Deidre Holliday and board members John Tyndall and Joyce Lee, who compare themselves to Christians who were persecuted during the Roman Empire.

“The public has us all wrong,” Lee said. “We don’t have a private agenda. We haven’t started half the things we’ve been accused of. But yes, we are Christian. And most of the time, we’re being punished only for that.”

The recall effort began in January. The group behind it needs the signatures of 9,100 registered voters by today. If successful, the effort will mandate a June election that will cost the Vista Unified School District between $12,000 and $14,000.

Donovan, whose son attends the Vista schools, said the recall was organized as a response to:

* The board’s efforts to “force” creationism into the district’s curriculum “and taking up valuable time in marathon school board sessions to do so, at the expense of all other agenda items.”

* Attempts to introduce “Sex Respect,” a controversial sex education program that spurns any talk of contraception in favor of a rigid, abstinence-until-marriage approach that has led to litigation in other districts across the country.

* The rejection of a $400,000 state grant to fund a pilot program aimed at helping low-income minority students. Donovan said board members opposed the program’s free breakfast component, saying that children eating breakfast away from home was warping much-needed “family values.”

Lee says the recall proponents are misguided and that much of the furor has been created by “our hostile opposition.”

But Donovan maintains that the three board members’ agenda is not educational.

“Linda Rhoades, one of the other board members, is Christian, but we’re not trying to recall her, because she doesn’t have a private agenda,” Donovan said. “If we were recalling people just because they were Christian, we would have had a recall every year since school boards were invented.”

Holliday, Tyndall and Lee opened the door to the teaching of creationism with the introduction of a new science policy late last year that drew national attention and stinging rebukes from state educators--and stirred up the debate in Vista.

The policy orders that “discussions of divine creation” shall take place at “appropriate times.” Educators say the policy comes close to being illegal by bridging the line between church and state.

“Right now, no school board in the nation is more closely watched than that one,” said Susie Lange, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.

Last week, the battle escalated, with a Christian voters’ lobby accusing the state Democratic Party of masterminding the recall. The Rev. Billy Falling said state Democratic Party Chairman Bill Press fired the first salvo by declaring at a recent speech: “We’re not going to let the religious right be in charge of curriculum, in charge of hiring teachers. We’re going to be there, too.”

Falling threatened a lawsuit, saying the three board members had been discriminated against because they are Christian.

Press countered by saying of Falling: “I hate to burst his bubble, but he’s not important enough to be on my radar screen.” Press said although “recalls are provided for under the California Constitution,” his party--to his knowledge--had given no money to the recall effort in Vista.

“The absurdity of the allegation speaks for itself,” Press said.

Leslie Brazier, a Vista parent and member of the Christian Voters League that helped sweep the three to power, said that a local Democratic club had funneled at least $100 to recall proponents, based on records filed with San Diego County’s registrar of voters, a charge the chairman of the Democratic Party in San Diego County denies.

Jeanette Turvill, spokeswoman for the Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento, said Falling lacks the grounds for a lawsuit if financial assistance is his only evidence.

“Nothing prohibits the Republican Party or the Democratic Party from making contributions to either candidates or ballot measures--including recalls,” she said.

The targeted board members also maintain that a recall is not the proper vehicle for challenging their views.

“We were elected openly and democratically,” Lee said. “And if people don’t like it, they can vote against us the next time.”

Some of the board’s fiercest opponents agree with that position and have come out against the recall. Some question the expense involved and the political risk of throwing a spotlight on the three. One is activist Ken Blalack, who said: “They were clearly on the ropes. So why did we need this--now?”

Indeed, Tyndall and Lee joined Holliday, a sitting board member, by the narrowest of margins. Cox and others say Holliday may well be defeated when she runs for reelection in November, thus ending the majority on the five-member board.

But Blalack believes the high visibility of the recall effort may have helped--rather than hurt--Holliday’s chances.

“I think all the (recall proponents) may have done is stir up a few more amens and Hallelujahs at school board meetings in Vista,” he said. “Somehow, I hope I’m wrong.”