High School Agrees to Delay Distribution of Condoms

Facing the threat of a lawsuit by the parents of a student, a Marin County high school has postponed a plan to offer condoms to students without notifying their families.

The program, which had been scheduled to begin this week, would have made Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley the state’s first school to dispense condoms to students without parental consent.

“On the advice of legal counsel, the distribution of condoms at Tamalpais High School has been postponed,” said Walter Buster, superintendent of the Tamalpais Union High School District, in a prepared statement.

Under the program, the school nurse would provide free condoms to any interested students, but only after they participate in a 20-minute orientation session that includes instructions on condom use and information on sexual abstinence, venereal disease and AIDS. The names of participants in the one-on-one sessions would remain confidential.

A group of students had campaigned for the program and won final approval for it from a panel of parents and school administrators.

But on Monday, an attorney for parents of a female student at the school threatened to sue the district and seek an injunction to halt the program. The lawyer, Judith Tomsic, said the parents asked her last weekend what could be done to prevent the condom distribution program.

Tomsic contends that the program would create potential liability problems for the school. For instance, she said, “Suppose the condom fails and the girl gets pregnant. Is the school liable?”

Sandra Woliver, an attorney representing the school district, reviewed the condom program and found no legal problems. But after speaking to Tomsic, Woliver suggested that the condom distribution be postponed until she could examine the parents’ complaints.

“(Their legal arguments) seem very novel but I haven’t seen them,” she said. “I told (Tomsic) to put them in writing.”