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In the race to lead Alpine School District, candidates for four school board seats have been touting their views on slashing class sizes, handling rapid enrollment growth and balancing a tight budget.
But the most unusual debate in the campaign may be over the word democracy.
A small but outspoken group of parents has for months been protesting Alpine's mission statement — "educating all students to ensure the future of our democracy" — and the values that underpin it. They have launched a website called http://www.saveasd.com.
The parents want to ditch the word democracy because they say it is contrary to a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, which describes the nation's government as a republic. Plus, they object to the four value statements that back up the mission statement. The values are drawn from the "Moral Dimensions of Education," a philosophy developed by longtime education scholar John Goodlad.
"He is anti-family and pro-socialist," said Oak Norton, a Highland father and one of the leaders of the group. "The school district is tied to a national agenda which I feel is detrimental to our children and their families."
Richard Young, dean of the education college at Brigham Young University, said Goodlad's writings are being "misconstrued." Young, who is a friend of Goodlad's, said the scholar emphasized in his later work the importance of families in children's education.
"I've never read anything [of Goodlad's] that promotes either socialism or communism — in fact just the opposite," Young said. "He promotes and believes very much that we need to help children in schools today learn all the skills that are required to become good citizens in our current form of government in the United States."
Alpine is one of five districts on the Wasatch Front that adopted the "moral dimensions" as part of a partnership with BYU that began in 1984. The goal of the program, Young said, is to improve teaching in the classroom.
Norton and saveasd.com have endorsed a candidate in each of the four races: newcomers Paula Hill, Wendy Hart and Scott Bell, along with board member Tim Osborn.
"I would like to focus on academics instead of politics" in a new mission statement, Bell said. "It should focus on excellence in academics."
The Alpine Education Association has endorsed the other four candidates: board members Donna Barnes, Chrissy Hannemann and JoDee Sundberg and Osborn's challenger, John Burton. But the candidates' stance on the district's mission and values were not discussed during candidate interviews or in a questionnaire, said AEA President Michael Gowans.
"As far as the mission statement goes, that's far down on our list" of priorities, Gowans said. "We don't have a problem with that word. [Democracy] means a government for all people."
Alpine board members and administrators have visited each of the district's 74 schools since the school year started and asked parents and others to weigh in on the mission and values.
"Most of the patrons feel that it is much ado about nothing," said Barnes, who is running for her third term on the board. "A lot of the citizens are tired of the controversy, frankly, and they think we need to move on. It's a very vocal minority who have a problem with our mission statement."
The board plans to discuss the feedback at a future board meeting, possibly in November, and decide whether to change the statement.
Norton estimates that he is in touch via e-mail with about a thousand Alpine parents who share his concerns.
That's barely more than 1 percent of the 96,970 registered voters in the four school board precincts on the Nov. 2 ballot, according to the Utah County Clerk's Office.
But even without shifting membership of the school board, the parents in the save-Alpine-School-District camp are having an impact.
In August, the board modified the language of the value statements to remove terminology that some parents found offensive. For example, "Enculturating the young into a social and political democracy" was changed to preparing "our students for responsible participation in a democracy."
Some have cited the term "social democracy" as evidence of a socialist agenda. A few weeks ago a sign with the "enculturating" statement was removed from the district's professional development center, spokeswoman Rhonda Bromley said.
"Our board is very open to feedback. That's the reason changes were made in [the value statements]," Bromley said. "If the words are causing people to be confused and not understand what the intent is, we need to explain them."
At least one board member is ready to drop democracy from the mission statement. Hannemann, who did not win the backing of saveasd.com, said she supports swapping democracy for country.
"Was it ever wrong to use [democracy]? No. Is it causing confusion and contention in our community? Yes," Hannemann said. "We need to move on into other things. Until we talk about this as a board and we come to a decision, our community will keep stirring."
District's mission statement
"Educating all students to ensure the future of our democracy."
Alpine's values, based on "moral dimensions" of education, are the following:
To prepare our students for responsible participation in a democracy.
To ensure all students can participate in the entire education program.
To promote a caring and effective connection between teacher and student.
To foster individual ownership of the education program among all members of the educational family.
Source • Alpine's website.