Political, Religious Barriers Snag AIDS Education in the Classroom

Political and religious controversy over sexual topics is delaying or preventing some school systems in Orange County from teaching high school students about AIDS, a Times survey has found.

“Most parents assume that AIDS education is going on at their schools, but in some cases very little or nothing is being taught about the disease,” said Beverly Bradley, a nurse who heads health education for the Orange County Department of Education. “When the topic is just about the virus and the disease, there seems to be no problem. But when school districts propose to talk about sex and how AIDS is spread, they run into trouble.”

Bradley noted that since acquired immune deficiency syndrome is spread by exchange of blood, semen or vaginal secretions, there is no way to educate people about it without discussing sex.

Most opposition to AIDS education has come from political conservatives and religious fundamentalists. In some cases the issue has been the wording of AIDS brochures. In others, there is resistance to any form of sex education.

The Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Anaheim-based California Coalition for Traditional Values, has militantly opposed education material about AIDS unless it advocates virginity until marriage. Sheldon also has criticized any education material that “accepts the homosexual life style as normal.”

One district that has wrestled with the issue is the 37,000-student Santa Ana Unified School District, the county’s largest. Because of longstanding conservative opposition on the school board, the district has never offered sex education. Today, although the board is no longer dominated by conservatives, the district still has not settled on an “acceptable” way to get information about AIDS to its students.

“The board has been discussing what we should do about AIDS education,” said Joan Wilkinson, a member of the Santa Ana Unified school board. “We don’t have sex education per se. Basically what we have is discussion of reproduction in science courses. It isn’t a whole lot, but I’m not in favor of a separate (sex education) course.

“The whole issue is full of controversy and is linked to value systems. There’s always the problem of how you’re going to present the material. As for the county’s brochure (on “Teens and AIDS”), our staff has recommended against it, saying it isn’t appropriate.”

She added: “AIDS involves talking about sex. I think it’s a part of the whole subject, and you can’t separate it. I think the best approach, probably, for our board is to appoint a task force representative of the community and study this and make recommendations to the board.”

Wilkinson is considered a political moderate on the five-member Santa Ana board. She said that while she has reservations about the district moving into sex education: “I know something needs to be done. . . . There is a regrettably high teen-age pregnancy rate in this district. Still, you again get down to value systems and cultural and church beliefs. All of these things make it difficult, and that’s why I think community input (about sex and AIDS education) is desirable.”

While supporting the formation of a community AIDS task force, board member Mary J. Pryer said she believes that most students are aware of the disease and ways to avoid contracting it.

“I’m not sure how much additional information is necessary,” Pryer said. “Kids are a lot wiser than they used to be--give them credit. . . . But I’m going to reserve judgment until I hear from the community.”

Pamphlet at Center of Issue

In districts with sex education programs, some efforts to distribute AIDS literature have run into opposition.

Last February, conservative Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) sent letters to many Orange County school superintendents expressing dismay about a pamphlet, “Teens and AIDS,” proposed for distribution to students by the county Board of Supervisors.

Dannemeyer said the pamphlet implied that homosexuality and teen-age sexual promiscuity are “normal.” His letter also criticized the pamphlet for containing the phone number of an agency that provides assistance to gays.

As a result of Dannemeyer’s letter and other opposition, at least one school system--the Huntington Beach Union High School District--decided not to mail out the pamphlet.

At one point, trustee David Warfield recalled last week, district trustees had considered mailing a copy of the brochure to the family of every student in the district.

Decided to Wait

“But there are some fundamentalists who attend all our board meetings and they protested about the brochure,” Warfield said. “They said that, one, the brochure didn’t emphasize abstinence from sex, and two, that the brochure contained the phone number of a gay rights organization. We decided to wait and not mail the brochures.”

Warfield is on the board of directors of the Orange County AIDS Walk, a fund-raising event for efforts against the disease. He said he believes strongly in AIDS education for students and that he is unhappy that pressure groups are trying to hamper or censor information.

“The fact is, children of high school age are high risk,” Warfield said. “Like it or not, kids of this age engage in sex. We’ve got to take our heads out of the sand. We need to deal with it.”

Warfield said he would like to see the district have a homeroom session each semester to discuss AIDS. “That way everyone could have access to the latest information and it wouldn’t be just one course, such as a health class for sophomores, that might be having AIDS education.” Warfield said he doesn’t think the district’s present system, teaching about AIDS in the one-semester health classes, is adequate.

Also in favor of more education on sex and AIDS is Christian F. (Rick) Thierbach, a trustee in Anaheim Union High School District. That district incorporates AIDS information into its health classes. Thierbach said he would like to see more, including a return to sex education in the district, which was one of the first to include it.

“We were once a pioneer in sex education. There were classes in sex education when I was a student. But in the 1970s, it became a political issue, and sex education was dropped. I think it was a mistake.

“As a prosecutor,” said Thierbach, a deputy district attorney in Riverside County, “I’ve seen some unfortunate cases that stem from lack of sex education.”

Thierbach said that although Anaheim did not mail out the “Teens and AIDS” brochure, it was not Dannemeyer’s letter that swayed the board. “Frankly, I don’t pay much attention to what Congressman Dannemeyer says,” Thierbach said.

Dannemeyer said he opposes the wording and messages of some forms of AIDS education. He called the direction of most sex education programs “unfortunate” in suggesting “that there is such a thing as ‘safe sex.’ ”

Dannemeyer said he had heard about the Red Cross film on AIDS that is being shown to some county educators and said he liked its stress on abstinence. “It respects what I believe should be an essential element (in sex education), namely the recognition of the inseparability of human sexuality and morality.” Dannemeyer said he liked the fact that the Red Cross film “put condoms as a footnote, not as an essential tool in the fight to prevent AIDS.”

Dannemeyer said he had objected to the “Teens and AIDS” pamphlet in part because it was produced by “the office that is occupied by the Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Garden Grove, a homosexual rights activist organization.”

“Because it was produced from that vantage point,” he said, “it was in effect an apology for the homosexual life style.”

No State Law on Matter

Opposition by Sheldon’s California Coalition for Traditional Values and other conservative Christian organizations is making it difficult to find “acceptable” AIDS information for high school students, said some Orange County educators, many of whom would speak only on condition of anonymity.

“The fundamentalists are making this (AIDS education) a big target on their ideological agenda,” one school board member said.

Although state law requires school instruction about venereal diseases, no law covers instruction about AIDS.

Amanda Mellinger, manager of health, nutrition and physical education programs for the state Department of Education, said, “We are strongly encouraging all school districts in the state to have AIDS education projects, and we very soon will be able to provide the districts technical assistance with such projects.”

The Legislature earlier this month passed a bill by Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara) that calls for mandatory AIDS education in grades 7-12. The bill specifies that a video presentation be part of the instruction. Gov. George Deukmejian has until Sept. 21 to sign or veto the bill, or it will automatically become law. The governor has “given mixed signals” about his feelings on the bill, an aide in Hart’s Sacramento office said.

Sheldon said Friday that his group is asking Deukmejian to veto the Hart bill. “We’re opposed to the mandatory part in the bill, and we also worry that the bill will lead to a parade of gays and lesbians going into the schools to talk about their life styles,” he said.

Several people familiar with the issue identified the Laguna Beach Unified School District as having the most comprehensive AIDS education program in Orange County.

“We think we’re in the forefront of AIDS education,” Laguna Beach Unified Supt. Dennis Smith said. “We have a curriculum for this fall that extends from grades 6 to 12. We formed our own curriculum because we found that there is so far an abysmal lack of a curriculum (on AIDS) in California, or even in the nation, for that matter.

“We have AIDS material included in science courses, in human ecology (health) classes, in social studies classes, and in American government classes. We had parents, school staff, physicians, pediatricians and psychologists working to devise this curriculum.”

The programs aren’t controversial, Smith said.

“Our curriculum provides information and raises awareness,” he said. “The curriculum provides ways for parents to work with their children and to instill in them the morals the parents think appropriate, because that’s not our job.”

Another sweeping AIDS education program is ongoing in Saddleback Valley Unified School District. The district has a curriculum that includes AIDS education in grades 7-12, Assistant Supt. Ann Chlebicki said. She said the information is included in health, science and social science classes in junior and senior high.

Taught in Health Classes

Most other high school systems in Orange County limit AIDS education to health classes.

Thomas J. Prendergast, Orange County Health Care Agency epidemiologist and deputy health director, said, “The schools really have a great deal of difficulty developing curricula in a sensitive area like this and, as of this point, don’t have prepackaged a readily approved, completely developed curriculum.”

Noting that only one teen-ager in Orange County has contracted AIDS, Prendergast said high school students are not a high-risk group for the deadly disease. But he said it is still important that teen-agers receive AIDS education.

“It isn’t a group at which there is major spread occurring,” he said. “However, it is a period at which people are establishing behaviors that they will carry with them to young adulthood. This is a way to reach a large number of them.”