Clinton Scandal Can Mean Tough Choices for Teachers

When Dawn Mirone’s government class at Laguna Beach High School begins verbal reports this morning, the talk of politics and partisanship will include a few familiar names: Bill, Monica, Linda and Ken.

Since school started last week, the sex scandal involving President Clinton has been the social studies teacher’s hook to excite students about the Constitution, political parties, congressional committees and impeachment proceedings. Never before have the headlines so livened up her lesson plans.

Mirone said her classes are looking closely at all the issues.

But just how closely should students look? That is a question teachers across Southern California are asking themselves about the biggest civics lesson around right now.

Staff at a Newport Beach school will not speak about the issue at all; at Huntington Beach High School, teachers will refer to the possibility of impeachment but not to the sex scandal that led up to it.

Los Angeles school officials are convening a special task force to prepare guidelines for teachers, said Robert J. Collins, director of senior high school instruction. Teachers will be encouraged to discuss the legal, constitutional and moral issues involved, but must observe district policies. For one: Parental approval is required for any discussion of sex.

The question of how to develop lesson plans around the presidential indiscretion may actually be easiest for teachers in the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese’s nearly 300 schools, because their classes are conducted entirely in the context of Catholic teaching and morality, Supt. Jerome Porath said.

“We don’t worry whether it offends anyone’s value system,” he said. “We have our own value system, and the parents and teachers know this is how we deal with things.”

Starting from the viewpoint that extramarital sex is morally wrong, teachers could discuss the issue both from the religious perspective of forgiveness and the secular context of crime and punishment, he said.

‘These Children Are No Longer Children’

At Thousand Oaks High School, teacher Jerry Morris presents the sexual, political and legal issues.

“These children are no longer children--they are mature enough to handle this,” he said this week after taking his government class through the process and timeline of an impeachment inquiry and outlining various investigations into the Clinton administration.

“Tomorrow, we’ll get into the grounds for impeachment, the legal definition of sexual relations [from the Paula Corbin Jones civil suit] and the issue of whether oral sex meets that definition,” he said. “We’ll address this in an overview.”

“My concern is going to be if they ask specific questions. How far do you go?”

Linda Mehlbrech, coordinator of the social studies curriculum for the Long Beach Unified School District, considered issuing guidelines on the topic but dropped the plan after she polled eighth-grade civics teachers and found a consensus on how to present the subject.

“I would not get into a sexual conversation” with students, she said. “But I would talk about [the scandal]. It’s a good time to start talking about character education, making good value judgments. Why do people make these decisions?”

The situation is complicated for many teachers by uncertainty over just how much their students know in the first place. Many, particularly those in middle school, don’t understand much of what’s going on, sexually or politically. And to some youngsters, matters other than the presidency are much more important.

“They’re just getting back to school and they’re interested in seeing their friends and getting their schedules squared away,” said Barbara Callard, principal of Laguna Beach High.

Generally, teachers who already are using the scandal to enhance lectures on the three branches of government and the Constitution said they are avoiding the sexual details.

“The larger question is: What does it all mean? What should happen to him?” said Renea Boyum, who teaches Advanced Placement government at Garden Grove High School. The class also has talked about any similarities the controversy has to the Watergate crisis during the Nixon administration.

Mirone of Laguna Beach said examining presidential power is part of the students’ curriculum, so studying extramarital affairs is in. Discussion of the salacious details contained within the Starr report is out. Nonetheless, she can tell that her students are already familiar with those details.

At Monroe High School in the San Fernando Valley, teacher Mark Elinson has used the scandal to introduce his Law and Youth class to the Supreme Court, telling students that the current crisis began when the court allowed the Jones lawsuit to proceed. Clinton possibly perjured himself when he testified under oath in that case that he did not have a sexual relationship with Lewinsky.

But that’s as far as he and other teachers at his school are going.

“I say, ‘You can feel free to pick up the newspaper and read it,’ ” fellow teacher Paul Graber said. “I’m not going to Xerox it off and give it to them. I tend to shy away from the more lurid details of the report.”

On Thursday, students at the school reenacted the Salem witch trials of 1692 in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.” In the play, a girl has an affair with a respected--and married--man. A cover-up ensues. Innocent people are accused of witchcraft. But the truth comes out, and ultimately, the man’s life is destroyed.

The parallels to the Washington controversy did not escape the students.

“In real life, you have Lewinsky and Clinton,” said Algernon Clay-Greene, 16. “It’s like everything you see on Jerry Springer. It’s just one big love triangle, but probably there’s no love.”

Some public schools are completely shying away from the controversy.

“There is nothing factual that we can talk about right now, except for the Starr report, and our teachers are choosing not to talk about that,” said Don Martin, principal of Corona del Mar High School.

If any questions arise about the presidential scandal at Thurston Middle School in Laguna Beach, Principal Ron LaMotte said he will refer children to their parents for answers. So far, school officials across the region report that parents have said little on the matter.

Laguna Beach High senior Emon Abdolsalehi, 16, who is studying the issue in Mirone’s government class, said her parents have been pleased by her broadening knowledge of the controversy.

“They’re impressed that I have to know so much about it,” she said.

Times staff writers Duke Helfand, Kate Folmar and Doug Smith contributed to this story.