School Board to Vote on Use of Book Series

Redondo Beach elementary school trustees, at the urging of a conservative Christian parents’ group, have scheduled a vote on the district’s continued use of a series of readers some parents deem morbid and anti-Christian, district officials said.

“Impressions,” a series of grade-school readers that are the basic reading texts for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders in Redondo Beach schools, will come before the school board at its Feb. 6 meeting, Supt. Nick Parras said.

The texts have come under fire nationwide from members of the religious right, who disapprove of the inclusion in the books of stories and poems about sorcery and magic. Critics have also charged that the books are morbid in tone.

The Redondo Beach parents demanded last month that the district shelve the books. The board took the matter under advisement but, in interviews afterward, most board members said they had no intention of withdrawing the books.