Senate Approves Bill Requiring Teaching of AIDS Prevention : Education: Lawmakers barely pass measure ordering that junior and senior high students be taught about dangers of the illness.

The state Senate on Thursday approved, with no votes to spare, a controversial bill that would require California junior and senior high school students to receive instruction in the prevention of AIDS.

Proponents asserted that without knowing how to guard against the illness, children would needlessly be put in jeopardy of dying. Opponents argued that because of the sensitive nature of the issue, such instruction should not be offered unless parents give their consent.

The bill, by Assemblywoman Teresa P. Hughes (D-Los Angeles), a similar version of which was vetoed last year by Gov. George Deukmejian, would require students in grades seven through 12 to receive AIDS prevention instruction as part of the curriculum--although there would be a provision for parents who object to pull their children from the classes. The bill was returned to the Assembly for concurrence in amendments on a 21-3 vote, the precise majority required.

Currently, about half the school districts in California provide sex and AIDS education with advance parental notification, but are not required to offer instruction in AIDS prevention.

Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), chairman of the Senate Education Committee, fought back attempts to amend into the bill a requirement that parents of junior high and middle school students give consent before instruction began. That effort came from the unlikely political team of liberal Senate Leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and conservative Sen. Don Rogers (R-Bakersfield).

Roberti rhetorically asked “what is wrong” with younger students receiving parental consent. “Most kids who are 12-, 13-, 14-years-old don’t have sex,” he said.

Other opponents of the bill voiced concern that junior high school students would be told by teachers rather than parents of AIDS-related practices such as anal sex. But Hart assured the Senate that the prevention instruction would be “age-appropriate.”

He said “irresponsible” parents, such as alcoholics, drug addicts and others, could not be depended upon to provide school authorities with a written consent form. “If (their children) do not receive this information, they are put at the risk of losing their lives,” Hart said.

In other actions as the Legislature neared scheduled adjournment at midnight tonight:

* Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren’s bill to create a special 90-day registration period early next year for owners who failed to register semi-automatic assault firearms by last Jan. 1 was approved by the Assembly, 41 to 31, and returned to the Senate for final action. Opponents charged, among other things, that the bill, by Roberti, added about 20 guns to the list of approximately 60 weapons that are outlawed in California.

* A bill prohibiting tobacco companies from distributing free samples on street corners passed the Assembly, becoming the only anti-smoking measure to survive in the Legislature this year.

* The Senate approved and sent to Gov. Pete Wilson legislation to exempt free circulation publications from paying the new state sales tax on newspapers, magazines and periodicals. Proponents of the bill have argued that it is unfair to extend the sales tax to newspapers that are circulated without charge or to publications of nonprofit or tax-exempt organizations.