Get Together

Although the problem with AIDS education in the county’s schools may be that there simply are not enough programs in operation, the problem with the school districts’ approach to drug education may be just the reverse. There seem to be too many programs provided by too many sources--with too little coordination between them.

A survey by the Orange County Grand Jury of county school districts and other government agencies discovered that there are at least 48 separate drug-abuse prevention programs now operating in the county. The problem, as the grand jury sees it, is “great fragmentation” among the programs being provided by the schools and other governmental agencies.

Each one of the 28 school districts in the county has a program, but there is no central clearinghouse for information and no coordinating system. Nor, in most cases, is there data evaluating the programs and their effectiveness, a shortcoming that the state attorney general would like to see corrected.

The grand jury is continuing its study of the anti-drug programs. But the jury’s initial findings indicate the biggest shortcoming might be the failure of school officials to work together to make prevention programs more uniform and effective.