SIMI VALLEY : Teachers Can Use Controversial Novel

Board members of the Simi Valley Unified School District voted 3 to 2 Thursday to keep the controversial novel “The Cay” on an optional seventh-grade reading list, despite protests from the NAACP and several parents and teachers.

NAACP officials have tried for more than a year to convince school district officials in Simi Valley and Moorpark that the book contains stereotypes and derogatory remarks that could fuel racism among students.

Board member Diane Collins, who voted against the motion along with board member Carla Kurachi, said the book “reinforces racial stereotypes . . . it should never appear on a reading list that we sanctioned. I hated it.”

Board members Judy Barry, Doug Crosse and Debbie Sandland voted for the measure.

The book, written by Theodore Taylor, was brought to the NAACP’s attention by the parents of a student at Simi Valley’s Sequoia Junior High School.

The parents, who say the book contains racist remarks, told NAACP officials their son was offended when the novel was taught in his class, where he was the only black.

A special district committee set up to review the book recommended late last year that the novel be taken off a mandatory reading list for seventh-graders and placed on an optional list.

Simi Valley Supt. Robert Purvis met with the parents and NAACP officials in December and explained that he would implement the committee’s recommendation.

Although the two sides apparently had reached an agreement over the use of the book, a later misunderstanding over whether teachers could still use the novel in class rekindled the issue.

Theodore Green, a vice president of the Ventura County NAACP chapter, said before the vote that it was the group’s understanding that the book would not be used in the classroom, and that students who wanted to read it could check it out from school libraries.

“This board is incapable of dealing with human decency,” Green said Thursday. “This action was a racist action.”

But board members who voted in favor of the book said it is actually a call to oppose prejudice. The novel is about a white boy who is shipwrecked on a Caribbean island, where he is befriended by an older black man.