NEWS
Published Tuesday, January 18, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Textbook is guide for kids at Elian's school
Values, behavior, life in Cuba taught in main textbook

BY MEG LAUGHLIN
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SEE ALSO
 THE BOOK:  The author of the main textbook at Elian Gonzalez's private
school, Lincoln-Marti, is the school's owner, Demetrio Perez.
 TIME FOR LEARNING:  Elian Gonzalez, 6, leaves for private school with
his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez.
 Elian's Miami relatives get 'breathing room'
Here's what Elian Gonzalez, 6, will learn at the private school he now
attends in Little Havana: He lives in a Christian society and should
support prayer in public and private schools. He should oppose abortion,
homosexuality and racism. He should love the American flag and realize
that ``the influence of The United States in the world has been
beneficial to all.´´
The child has completed two weeks of kindergarten at the Lincoln-Marti
School. If he stays in Miami and his great-aunt and great-uncle continue
to use the $3,000-a-year full tuition scholarship offered by school
owner Demetrio Perez, Elian will graduate from the school in Little
Havana when he is 18.
This means that the boy will more than likely be influenced by the
school's main textbook, Citizens Training Handbook, subtitled
Discipline, Moral, Civism, Urbanity, which students use from
kindergarten through 12th grade. Perez, the author, who also serves on
the Miami-Dade County School Board, says he wrote the 315-page guide for
parents, teachers and students at the private school to ``produce the
worthy citizens our society so badly needs.´´
The $25 book is divided into 57 chapters ranging from ``Foreign
Policy´´ to ``Serving a Formal Dinner´´ to ``Friendship.´´
Elian, like his classmates, will study the book and be tested on its
contents every nine weeks during his 12 years at the school.
``The book and the practice of it is a very important part of the
Lincoln-Marti education,´´ says Amelia Estrada, 22, a former
student.
While at the school, Elian will learn from the main textbook that Cuba,
where he came from and where his father and grandparents still live,
``has not been able to provide for people´s most basic needs such as
food, clothing and housing.´´
``We want Elian to know that in this country, we in no way support Cuba
or people in Cuba who believe in that system,´´ Perez says.
At Lincoln-Marti, the book will teach Elian that, according to
immigration laws, certain undesirables are not allowed to come to this
country: ``habitual drunks, adulterers and sexually immoral
people.´´ Elian will read that Richard Nixon got a raw deal when he
was forced to resign as President, and that Americans now regret this
and honor him.
John Krutulis, associate director of The Gulliver Schools and a board
member of the Dade Association of Academic Nonpublic Schools, to which
Lincoln-Marti belongs, says that what is taught at any private school is
up to the school. The state can monitor the facility, the
teacher-student ratio and the general curriculum, Krutulis says, but not
what goes on in the classroom.
``Parents choose a private school,´´ Krutulis says. ``Besides the
school itself, they are the only ones with any say about what their
children learn.´´
FORMER STUDENT
Letrease Clark, a Lincoln-Marti graduate who now sends her 5-year-old
son to the school, said that her parents wanted her to go there because
the school taught conservative family values and diversity.
``I graduated from the school. I know what is taught there,´´ Clark
says. ``I know what´s in the citizens guide, and I wanted the same
thing for my child.´´
Elian will learn that he should try to be happy and remember to smile in
an interested way when people talk to him. He should not be dogmatic,
and he should never invite enemies to the same party.
The book will also teach Elian that, when he is an adult, he can miss a
dinner party but never a funeral. He can send flowers to women but never
to men. He can serve cocktails at his parties and should serve wine with
dinner. His wife should make sure the dinner plates do not clash with
the tablecloth, and should quickly respond to written invitations.
The small children at the school will put on skits to learn from the
guide, the book says.
At the Lincoln-Marti School, Elian Gonzalez will never be spanked. If he
misbehaves, he will be separated from his classmates and told to sit in
silence for a short time, as the book advises. He will pray every day
before lunch. He will stand when an adult enters the room.
STUDY AND PLAY
He will mix outdoor play with serious study by going to the school's
playground -- a small, fenced, mulched playground, wedged between two
busy streets. As an older student, he will play on a fenced, concrete
lot, which has two basketball hoops with torn nets and electrical
transformers on a platform over it.
The school was founded by Perez's father, the late Demetrio Perez Sr.,
who was an educator in Matanzas, Cuba, where he and Demetrio Jr. grew
up. In 1968, the father started the first Lincoln-Marti School in Miami,
named after Abraham Lincoln and Jose Marti, two Perez family heroes. The
school now has 15 branches in Miami-Dade County.
Over the past decade, students from the school have marched in yearly
Calle Ocho parades to commemorate the Bay of Pigs invasion. They also
have marched to honor the memory of Jose Marti and in support of the
trade embargo against Cuba. Several times, they marched in front of
Brigade 2506, a Cuban exile paramilitary group, and chanted in Spanish:
``Down with Fidel´´ and ``Liberty for Cuba.´´
Estrada, the former student, says that her views ``broadened´´ after
she went to public school, college and graduate school, after attending
the private school. But, she says, certain teachings remained with her:
``Lincoln-Marti taught me to participate in the community,´´ she
says.
Two other former students, a sister and brother who asked not to be
named, gave the school mixed reviews. The young woman liked it; her
brother didn't. Their mother summarized their experiences: ``My daughter
was very well-behaved and dutiful and did well at Lincoln-Marti. But my
son, who was a bit restless and questioning, did not.´´
DIFFERENT OUTCOMES
The mother says the daughter graduated. The son was asked to leave the
school.
``We want children who think in a healthy way,´´ Perez says. ``We
would not want a child who leans toward the communist way of
thinking.´´
A few years ago, Lincoln-Marti was cited by Florida's Department of
Health and Rehabilitative Services because of problems at a couple of
its branches. Parents complained that there was no milk for small
children and no air conditioning in the summer, and that they were not
allowed inside the classrooms.
A 1994 HRS report says the Hialeah Lincoln-Marti School (not the Little
Havana branch where Elian is) had to be closed because it was ``run
down´´ and ``dilapidated´´ and ``unsafe for children.´´ It
was reopened, the report says, when improvements were made.
In 1997, the Hialeah school again received a critical evaluation, along
with another branch of the school in North Miami: ``No toys, books or
puzzles, only a few broken crayons. Broken plumbing. Children left
unsupervised.´´ At another branch, a parent filed a complaint saying
there was rotten garbage, with maggots in it, in the lunchroom.
Perez calls the problems ``minor´´ and says they were all quickly
corrected. Indeed, a few months after the first critical reports,
subsequent reports said: ``Schools meet minimal standards.´´
The branch in Little Havana, which Elian Gonzalez attends, has received
satisfactory ratings from the state for the past two years.
``All of our schools are in full compliance with state standards,´´
Perez says.
CHILD PROMOTED
Recently, Elian's first-grade class learned about the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. in anticipation of the holiday honoring King. Perez says the
child was put ahead to first grade, even though it is the middle of the
school year and he just turned 6, because he is such a good reader of
Spanish. But he read about King in English.
``Dr. King tells people to love, not to hate,´´ a picture caption
said.
``We want the children to love as long as they understand they must love
the liberty in this country, and not a communist system,´´ Perez
says.
The school guide gives advice about how children learn to love: ``From
birth, children desire and need their parents´ attention. They need
their parents to speak to them, hold them and caress them.´´ The
book also says: ``Children need their parents to choose the kind of
education they should be given.´´
But this advice is not meant to suggest that Elian should be with his
only living parent, his father in Cuba, Perez says.
``The father is not really the father,´´ Perez says. ``In Cuba,
Castro thinks for everyone. He is the father, and the child does not
need Castro to care for him or make decisions.´´
In two weeks, Lincoln-Marti students will march in a parade to honor
Jose Marti and will again sing and chant slogans with Brigade 2506.
Perez hopes Elian will participate.
``It is a way for him to fight indoctrination,´´ Perez says.
 
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