DATE: Tuesday, March 25, 1997               TAG: 9703250271

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY YOUNG, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   54 lines

CHESAPEAKE BOARD TOLD TO TEACH OTHER THEORIES OF LIFE EVOLUTION IS THE ONLY THEORY MANY CLASSES GIVE ANY CREDENCE, CHALLENGERS SAY.

Just after their customary prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, the School Board Monday night heard from citizens questioning how the district teaches the origins of life.

``It's about a 100-year-old debate,'' said Steve Gilmore, a divinity student at Regent University who also has a master's degree in exercise physiology. ``My request is that this debate in high school come up to at least the 20th century. Charles Darwin's theory just doesn't work anymore.''

Five speakers raised questions over the manner in which evolution is taught in the city's public schools. They were supported by applause from a crowd that spilled out into the hallway.

The issue over how evolution is taught was first raised in the fall by Carol Johnson, parent of a seventh grader. She said she challenged the biology text her son was using because she didn't find it to contain a fair representation of theories other than evolution - including creation science - and that it presented evolution as fact.

``I've not asked that it not be taught - but since there's only two basic views, both should be taught,'' Johnson said in an earlier interview. ``It's unfair for children not to see the other side. I would no more want to see only my views taught. All I want is a balance.''

Before Monday's meeting, Johnson distributed flyers asking people to attend the meeting. The flyers contend that ``modern `educators' are leading children down a road to destruction.''

Johnson brought her challenge to the School Board after she had appealed to a review committee - which included a principal, three parents and three teachers - and to Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols. The committee and Nichols recommended the district keep the text that Johnson challenged. The state's Standards of Learning require that evolution be taught.

But Johnson found at least one potential ally in School Board member Patricia P. Willis, who praised some of the alternative science materials Johnson had left for the board to review. Willis asked Nichols to check into whether the materials were in use by any other public school systems in the country and whether it would be possible to supply teachers with copies to be used as additional reference tools.

Willis also proposed that the board insert a letter to parents into science textbooks making it clear that evolution is a theory and that there are other theories on the origin of life. However, she added that the board should be careful when commenting on other theories.

``Sometimes evolution is stated more as fact than a theory,'' Willis said, adding that she would request that the board discuss her proposal at the next meeting.

``The question is,'' city resident Dyrell Hicks said Monday night, ``are we going to find the courage when the academic peers and the nation say don't do this? Teach evolution, but teach it accurately. You don't have to veer from the Standards of Learning - just teach it accurately.''

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