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Show Great Books decision creates local controversy By MARC HADDOCK Local supporters of the Junior Great Books program were upset and confused by last weeks 3-2 decision by the Alpine School Board to drop the program. But the board member whose vote probably decided the issue said that vote wasn't based on the nature of the program, but as a response to the controversy that had raged around the program in the months of discussion and argument that led up to the decision. "I cannot believe it really happened," hap-pened," said Great Books proponent Sally Taggart about the board's decision. "I had relied on reasonable people to make a rational decision." Mrs. Taggart, and other supporters of the program, are now circulating petitions, 300 of them, throughout the Alpine School District, seeking support for the program, but Mrs. Taggart isn't very optimistic. "I don't think it will be reconsidered, recon-sidered, at least not before the next school year," Mrs. Taggart said. "The petitions aren't so much designed to ask that the program be reconsidered as they are to express displeasure with the board's actions." Several people supporting the program said the decision came after a strong lobbying effort by opponents but that proponents were told that kind of effort would not make any real difference. Two weeks before the decision, a district-appointed committee set up to study the issue had returned a favorable report about the Junior Great Books program. Proponents were told that the decision would be made on the merits of the program itself, not on how popular the program was or was not among school district patrons. Mrs. Taggart, however, said that wasn't the case when the final decision was made. "I don't think that the lobbying made any difference," she said. "The reasoning on the board was so diverse, and the one who made the difference didn't base his reasoning on public pressure." That was Board Member Dan Fugal, who has been called the ' 'swing vote' ' on the issue. "I hate to be labeled that," Fugal said. "But I guess I have that burden to bear." See Books on page 12 Books (Continued from page 1) Fugal said he can see both good and bad in the program, but describes himself as "still kind of in the middle of the road" over the issue itself. "My position was, and probably still is, that we ought to take two steps back and evaluate what we are doing," Fugal said. "More than anything else, there needed to be a 'cooling off period." Dr. Richard Heaps, president of the board and one of the members who voted against dropping the program, said he was disappointed in the decision "since the request was for a voluntary program that was not going to be costing the district money and allowed for a great deal of volunteer help." |