Fallbrook Board Members Hear Heated Comments on School Play

More than 200 parents, teachers and students packed Fallbrook High School’s cafeteria for Monday night’s school board meeting to voice their support and opposition to what some parents claimed is an obscene script in a high school drama class.

Upset by the teacher’s choice of the play “Baby With the Bathwater,” some parents proposed at the Fallbrook Union High School District’s board meeting that a committee be established to oversee the drama curriculum.

The clamor began in March over a scene from the 1983 play by Christopher Durang that was to be performed at a drama competition. In the play, a teacher goes to the principal to consult with her about a student who has submitted a dark, near-suicidal essay. The principal also repeatedly asks the teacher if she ever felt she were a lesbian.

“I just felt that this was highly inappropriate for 14-year-olds and could see no reason why they allowed this to be performed, especially without parental permission,” said Carolyn Pinnock, whose daughter, Stacie, was to perform the role of the teacher.

Pinnock and others say that they are not trying to suppress academic freedom, and that issues such as homosexuality and teen-age suicide should be reserved for the appropriate classes or in the home.

“The school board needs to direct the staff to make sure that the faculty stays within legal guidelines and guidelines of decency,” said Carl Morrison, parent of a high school student.

“It’s inconceivable to me that a reasonable person wouldn’t arrive at the conclusion that having 14-year-old, freshmen children act out parts that refer to masturbation, wet dreams, lesbianism and incest is a little out of line,” Morrison said.

“A lot of people came to this town to get away from this type of thing in the places they left, and there is nothing wrong with this school board adopting a policy that is a little bit more moralistic than what is legally permissible.”

Other parents at the meeting, who made up about a third of the audience, were equally vehement in their opposition to the skit.

“I am standing up for morality,” said Mary Likens, a grandparent in the district. “If we don’t live up to our moral standards and what God has told us to to do, this country is going to go to hell in a handbasket.”

Teachers and students, however, came to the defense of their drama teacher.

“Teachers should not have to be the victims of private interest groups seeking to further their personal agendas in the public school classroom,” said Greg Barr, the president of the Fallbrook Teachers Assn.

Students and teachers framed the issue as a matter of academic freedom.

“Acting is a portrayal of life, and life has conflict,” said Heather Lavender, a 17-year-old senior at Fallbrook High. “If we are not exposed to anything pertaining to life in the classroom, how are we supposed to survive when we graduate and go on?” But school administrators said they thought they had the problem solved weeks ago when they proposed to require permission slips before students could perform in potentially controversial plays.

“I really think that it’s an overreaction on some of the parents’ part,” Supt. Robert Thomas said.

He dismissed the idea of a screening committee, saying that such a panel “would limit the teacher.”

“At what point do you trust the teachers’ professional knowledge and judgment?” he asked. “Obviously, we don’t want stuff done in poor taste, but what issues can they talk about? Suppose there is some play on alcoholism? Some folks wouldn’t want us to talk about that.”