LA PLATA, Md. -- Margaret Young, vice chairman of the Charles County Board of Education, believes her school system's required reading lists are filled with "profanity and pornography, fornication and adultery."
"I think parents would be appalled if they really read the books their kids were reading that were so filled with profanity and pornography," she told The Washington Post. "I rely on the school system to provide good wholesome reading for my children."
Young supports a recent board recommendation that calls for "removing anything (from reading lists) that provides a neutral or positive view of immorality or foul language."
But some in the southern Maryland county are upset, fearing that some board members are attempting to impose personal religious and moral beliefs on the public schools.
They point to the book list and a proposal that recommends distributing Bibles in schools, removing science books "biased towards evolution" and teaching sexual education classes focused exclusively on abstinence.
"They're basically trying to skew the curriculum, to teach their own conservative Christian values," said Meg MacDonald, a representative from the Charles County Education Association.
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The board said it would begin discussing the list of moral and religious goals Oct. 12.
"Basically these people are telling you how you should be and, if you're not, you're a bad person," said Leslie Schroeck, a guidance counselor at La Plata High School, who has two young daughters. "If this is what they're going to do, I'll pull my kids out of school and teach them myself."
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