Support Voiced for Contraception Lessons in Class : Education: Escondido school district hears mostly opposition to a plan to drop lessons on birth control from its sex education curriculum.

About 50 parents, teachers and community representatives voiced their concern to the Escondido Union Elementary School District on Thursday night over a proposed policy that would eliminate discussion of contraceptives from the district’s sex education curriculum.

The board had yet to vote on the policy late Thursday.

“I’m concerned about the false security we give our children when we use the term safe sex ,” said Cathy Rowe, an Escondido parent and one of only two people out of 24 speakers who opposed the inclusion of lessons discussing birth control. “We’re sending mixed messages to our children. We will confuse them more than they are now.”

Most speakers argued in favor of including the lessons.

“The fact is that kids don’t get sex education at home. They don’t even get the moral side of it at home, usually,” said Kay Guy, an Escondido parent. “Most of what kids get, they are going to get from the schools, either from their friends or their teachers. And let’s be realistic: Kids do not make good decisions at all times. They’re kids.”

Several parents appealed to the board to allow them to continue to choose whether to allow their children to receive birth control information.

The district last spring piloted a family-life program that placed much stronger emphasis on abstinence but included contraceptive lessons. A majority of two advisory committees made up of school staff members, parents and community representatives had supported the program.

But several board members had indicated that they believed that to include lessons on birth control along with a strong abstinence program would be sending a mixed message.

Since the early 1980s, the school district has had a program that included lessons on contraception.

Those board members also felt that seventh grade, the level at which children would be taught the program, was too early to introduce contraceptives to them.

Board members supporting a family-life curriculum that included contraception argued that the school district already has a policy allowing parents to pull their children from courses they consider objectionable.

To eliminate lessons on contraceptives, those board members said, would limit the choices for parents and force schools to teach only one point of view in sex education.

A poll of the students involved in the Escondido pilot project showed that 86% approved of the program that included birth control lessons. In addition, 93% of parents responding approved of the full curriculum, and 93% said it was age-appropriate.

The curriculum at issue is called “Me, My World, My Future,” which is actually a program developed 10 years ago in Seattle called Teen Aid and amended in Escondido to include lessons on contraceptives.

The district’s staff earlier this month had recommended that the full curriculum be adopted, including teaching the use of birth control. The advisory committees endorsed the program, with only three committee members objecting.