Decision on Student Contraceptives Delayed

A Culver City Board of Education advisory committee last week delayed a decision on whether a student health clinic should dispense contraceptives, despite a UCLA survey in which nearly a third of Culver City students between the ages of 11 and 14 said they are sexually active.

Members of the Health Center Community Advisory Committee on Wednesday approved other health services for the clinic, including treatment of minor injuries and illnesses, vision, hearing and skin care, drug abuse, mental-health and weight-control counseling and health education.

The committee, made up of parents, school officials and students, will decide Nov. 5 whether the clinic should also offer gynecological and obstetric care and dispense contraceptives to students.

The committee was formed earlier this year to suggest services for the campus clinic, which the Culver City Middle School and High School will share.

Pam Erickson, coordinator of the UCLA survey, said committee members and UCLA officials decided to consider health services related to sexuality separately because they were the most controversial.

Birth Control Favored

She said a majority of the survey responses tabulated so far show that students and parents favored offering birth control and gynecological care at the clinic.

Erickson said all of the 395 middle-school responses have been tabulated, but only half of the 845 high school responses have been tallied. Officials expect overall survey results to change by only 1% to 5% when the rest are tabulated, she said.

If the dispensing of contraceptives is approved, the school clinic would probably offer birth control pills, diaphragms, sponges, condoms, foams and jellies, said Sally Pappas, administrator of UCLA’s family planning clinic. All would be free, she said

A subcommittee formed in August has recommended against dispensing contraceptives. The subcommittee also suggested that children have a signed consent form from their parents to use the clinic.

Only one committee member, Thomas J. Supple, a parent who opposes birth control services at the clinic, voiced concern at Wednesday’s meeting about offering contraceptives or health care related to sex.

Supple said providing gynecological services amounted to offering students birth control assistance, which Supple believes should be handled at home.

Expressed Concern

Some parents expressed alarm at the degree of sexual activity that students reported in the survey, particularly at the middle-school level. Responses tabulated indicate that 29% of Culver City middle school students and 53% of Culver City high school students are sexually active. Of those, 65% are boys and 35% are girls.

The middle school includes grades 6 to 8 with students who are 11 to 14 years old. The high school covers grades 9 to 12 with students aged 13 to 17, Erickson said. In the past year, seven girls in the school district who became pregnant gave birth, school nurse Sandy Segal said. In previous years, she said, the district has only recorded one birth a year by a student.

Erickson said the sexual activity rate was roughly equal to that of other middle and high schools across the country. Some parents, however, said they doubted the validity of the survey. They said some students may have indicated that were sexually active when they were not.

But Rick Wilson, a student member of the committee and a Culver City High School junior who attended the middle school, told the committee that although the percentages were a little high, the results were basically correct.

More than 80% of the middle school and 91% of the high school students whose views were tabulated said they favored the clinic. The services they most often mentioned included general medical care, mental health counseling, drug and alcohol abuse counseling and birth control.

Parents, Teachers Surveyed

UCLA also surveyed about 300 parents and 56 teachers. With about two-thirds of the parents’ responses tabulated, 99% said they favored the clinic. The most popular services of 13 listed in the survey were the treatment of minor or acute illnesses and vision and hearing care. Nearly 80% of parents favored both.

Nearly 60% of the parents whose responses were tabulated favored offering gynecological care. Only 35% said they wanted the clinic to provide pregnancy care. The teacher survey has not yet been tabulated by UCLA.

Middle school students listed family concerns, acne, stress and weight problems as their top health problems, while students at the high school claimed their problems centered around stress, family, weight and depression.

The UCLA departments of obstetrics, gynecology and pediatrics asked the school board earlier this year to allow them to run the campus clinic. University officials are seeking grants from a number of foundations to fund the project. Officials said they would need between $150,000 and $250,000 annually to run the clinic.

About 60 schools in the United States have campus clinics, said Adrian Davis, a UCLA health educator involved with the clinic project. Clinics proposed for three East Los Angeles high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District will make contraceptives available to students, she said.

School and UCLA health officials have said about 90% of the services offered by the clinic would be those other than birth control.