Modesto Mom fights to rid classrooms of X-rated literature

[Gopher Broke]

Modesto Mom Fights to Rid Classrooms of X-Rated Literature

By Jim Brown August 1, 2003

(AgapePress) - One California parent is refusing to abandon her campaign to have sexually explicit books removed from classrooms in her school district. Pamela LaChappell has been calling on the Modesto City School Board to drop the offensive literature from its required reading list.

For months now, LaChappell has been warning parents, grandparents, and taxpayers in Modesto that some of the literature being used in the city schools' advanced English classes is sexually explicit and so offensive as to be considered X-rated. She has taken her concerns to the school board, which so far has refused to drop books containing graphic details of child rape, incest, and necrophilia. Instead, the board has released an annotated list providing brief summaries of each required reading selection.

LaChappell is dissatisfied. "The lip service is that the school board wants parents to know what's in these books," she says. However, the California parent believes the real message the administration is sending, albeit in a whisper, is that they want parents to know as little as possible.

"When you look at the list and the cover letter, you really do get the impression that the administration is doing what they can to keep parents placated and to lure them into a false security," Lachappell says.

Two of the works in question are novelist Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits and David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars. Since LaChappell went public with her concerns, several students have opted out of reading one of the controversial books.

LaChappell is concerned with making other parents and citizens in her community aware of the explicit literature, but she does not want the issue to end there. "Although these books are assigned in our Modesto school system, we are learning that they are assigned all across the country," she says.

LaChappell says she has learned that the reading list is based on recommendations from the International Baccalaureate Program, an educational program out of Sweden, which was designed to provide a challenging curriculum for gifted students.

LaChappell has three children in college and a fifth-grader that she is home-schooling. Earlier this year in a Modesto Bee newspaper article, she noted that many parents operate under the mistaken assumption that their children's schools are teaching wholesome literature.

[xrp]

Strengthening the argument for homeschooling. Why doesn't this woman just do this instead?

[sd-joe]

LaChappell has three children in college and a fifth-grader that she is home-schooling.

[sd-joe]

LaChappell has three children in college and a fifth-grader that she is home-schooling.

[laweeks]

Get her kids the hell out of the public schools now. If she doesn't, she has NOBODY to blame but herself. Grab them by the collar and get them out! God is out; perversion is in, and there's no groundswell to put a lid on this nonsense?

[Bob]

She is. From the article:

LaChappell has three children in college and a fifth-grader that she is home-schooling.

[Zavien Doombringer]

To be honest it is called money...Homeschooling isn't free, it costs close to the cheapest private school. about $4000 a year depending on the curriculum you are doing.

[InvisibleChurch]

which so far has refused to drop books containing graphic details of child rape, incest, and necrophilia.

a zillion books out in the world and the school picks these certain ones ... it's not done unintentionally ... one day someone will have to answer to God for their actions

Mark 9:42 "And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

[freedomcrusader]

Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits and David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars

Never heard of them (authors or works). Do they belong in a high-school literature curriculum, regardless of sexual content?

[Zavien Doombringer]

Hey, some of the works of Shakespeare could be considered vulgar and pornographic!

[aardvark1]

She has her kids out of public school. She is concerned what is passed off as education in the schools she is FORCED to support. Imagine that...concern about where her tax dollars are going.

[Tax-chick]

Are you serious ($4,000 a year)? You could get a whole family the Calvert School program - which includes all your school supplies - for less than that.

[Zavien Doombringer]

yes, I am serious! I have mine in private school (Sweethaven Christian School) only because it was the same price as the homeschooling curriculum. They are in elementary school, High school curriculum is higher! My two oldest are in the Public High School, it isn't that bad here, yet...

[Tax-chick]

Both were award-winning novels in the past 20 years or so. I read "House of the Spirits" (in the original Spanish) in a college Spanish literature class. Frankly, I don't think high school students would like it. It's about Latin American politics.

I've only seen the movie of "Snow Falling on Cedars"; it was not unsuitable for high schoolers. However, there's no telling what was in the book!

[Tax-chick]

Which curriculum were you considering? I don't think I could spend that much homeschooling my whole family, if I tried!

[templar]

Way back when I was in Jr. High School, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye were made required reading. They were very, very controversial and generated a lot of community opposition. Times have changed.

[Okies love Dubya 2]

As a homeschooling mother, let me tell you it doesn't cost that much. We are a one-income family, so we don't have lots of extra $ to throw around, but we spent less than $200 on our daughter's curriculum for this year (which we just started last week). That covers phonics, writing, art, math, music, religion, and science. It also includes the supplies I bought like paper, chalk, etc. that we use to complete her lessons. There are also tons of online resources that make it easier and cheaper to homeschool. Compare that to the closest Catholic school to us which costs about $2,500/year.

Even next year when our daughter does the first grade curriculum, it will only be about $350, and we are enrolled with a school that will keep records, grade papers, and provide lots of other services. We could do it cheaper but we elect to utilize those services so that when we move in a few years, we have those records. This will come in handy in case we decide to put them into a regular school or if we move to a state that is not as homeschool friendly as Oklahoma.

I am not trying to flame you, just point out that it is not as expensive as a lot of people think it is. It can be as expensive or inexpensive as you make it.

[logician2u]

Anyone who sends their kids to government indocrination camps can expect them to get a well-rounded education in the ins and outs of all sorts of things they may not be exposed to at home.

The whiners can complaain 'till the cows come home but it's not likely to change until a critical mass has a)recognized the putrid smell emanating from the "public" schools; and b)taken remedial action.

We went 'round and 'round with the school board over our daughter's being forced to read Catcher in the Rye a dozen years ago and got nowhere, so we know exactly what this parent is up against. One parent or even three parents have zero influence on the school establishment.

When the source of their funding is challenged, though, you may see a new customer-friendly attitude emerge.

Or, maybe not. They could just hunker down and fight off the homophobic, radical right wing Christian fundamentalist anti-government activists who would burn their children's books with every dirty trick in the book, aided by a sympathetic media. You know that's how Clinton would handle it.

[Redwood71]

I graduated high school at 17. I believe showing explicit material to a minor is a felony offence and can be jail time. I don't think their first amendment rights fall into this catagory when it is required reading for graduation purposes making a minor required to read it. If society determines it is a crime, then how is the school exempt? At that point, you can't call it literature but erotica.

[goodnesswins]

I read the "Snow" book.....I don't remember anything x-rated about it.....young sexual encounter (oblique, if I recall correctly).....and a very boring book, to me.