Foes Threaten Suit Over Sex Respect Program : Schools: Opponents say Vista’s recently adopted curriculum, which advocates abstinence, may violate the constitutional separation of church and state. Drive to recall conservative board members is under way.

Opponents of this city’s embattled school board lashed out Monday at its conservative Christian majority, threatening a lawsuit over its decision last week to adopt a controversial sex education program that may be in violation of state law.

“I expect a legal challenge to this,” said Mark Salo, director of Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside counties. “It appears to me that the board acted in violation of the law.”

Critics of the Sex Respect program, which is being challenged in school districts across the country, say it preaches a strict message of sexual abstinence until marriage with heavy religious overtones.

They say the program blurs the line between church and state, is often medically inaccurate and falls short of meeting state educational requirements regarding AIDS prevention. But the heaviest criticism concerns the fact that it all but ignores contraception.

In addition to a possible suit, members of the Coalition for Mainstream Education said parents in this San Diego-area city have gathered almost enough signatures to try to recall two of the board members in November, when the third is up for reelection.

The three members form a so-called Christian right majority on the five-member board that has helped reshape education in Vista since November, 1992, when the coalition was swept into office in what political opponents called a stealth campaign backed by area churches.

“They are totally arrogant,” Barbara Donovan, chairwoman of the parents’ group, said Monday. “They are insensitive to the mainstream community to the point that it’s hard to believe until you see it for yourself.”

Board President Deidre Holliday and members John Tyndall and Joyce Lee, who formed the three-member majority when Tyndall and Lee were elected in November, 1992, could not be reached for comment Monday. But at last week’s meeting, Holiday praised Sex Respect for curbing the rise of teen-age pregnancies across the country. She and her two colleagues have sharply criticized the recall campaign, saying it is politically motivated and does not represent the views of the electorate.

Last month, Donovan headed a recall bid that failed when proponents fell short of the number of signatures needed to place the measure on the June ballot. The group needs 9,100 signatures by June 1 to qualify for the November ballot and lacks about 2,000, Donovan said.

She accused the board of running up a $5-million debt and voting to build two new schools at a cost of $500,000, despite an absence of funds. “So even if they’re recalled,” she said, “we still have the debt to live with.”

She said the campaign is also based on the board’s decision to:

* Decline a state-funded Healthy Start grant, which would have given the district $400,000 to be used for social services for needy families. The board objected to the free breakfast component, saying children not eating breakfast with parents tends to corrupt family values.

* Adopt a revised science policy that critics say opened the door to the teaching of creationism in public schools. The new policy lowers evolution to the status of “just another theory” while stipulating that “discussions of divine creation” shall take place “at appropriate times” in district science classes.

* Slashed bus service to area high schools and increased the bus fee for other students from $110 a year to $200 a year. The board also voted to terminate free bus service for underprivileged students.

* Instituted prayer before school board meetings.

The Rev. Billy Falling, president of the Christian Voters League, which supports the three, said Monday he “appreciates the integrity and moral courage of the (three-member) majority, who are willing to provide solutions to a problem that’s gotten out of hand in our public schools in America.”

Falling claimed that, in a majority of the 1,500 school districts across the country in which Sex Respect is taught--including Hemet in Riverside County--teen-age pregnancies have sharply declined. He said the three are being attacked “only because they’re Christian.”

Jenny Vervynck, assistant pastor of an Episcopal church in Vista and a teacher at Rancho Buena Vista High School, took issue with Falling, saying, “My particular experience of Christianity is not consistent” with that of the three-member majority.

“They do not represent me, nor most of the people I know,” Vervynck said. “I would say most people in (Vista’s) Christian community believe strongly in the separation of church and state, as expressed by the Constitution.”

The three-member majority has been consistently under attack for articulating what opponents say are merely the views of large conservative Christian organizations around the country. All have denied the backing of such groups, saying they speak for themselves.

But at last week’s meeting, which lasted 6 1/2 hours, until 2 a.m. Friday, the board adopted Sex Respect over the objections of hundreds of speakers and then hired a prominent anti-abortion attorney to fend off possible litigation.

Sacramento-based lawyer David Llewellyn, who often represents conservative Christian groups, has been given the task of trying to bring Sex Respect in line with state curriculum guidelines at the cost of $125 an hour, school officials said Monday.

In addition to Llewellyn’s fees, Sex Respect--which is under review by the State Department of Education--will cost as much as $20,000 more than the district’s previous sex education program, which the state provided for free, officials said.

A poll published Sunday in the city’s newspaper, the Vista Press, reported local parents opposed to the program by a 2 to 1 margin.