High School Students Get Condoms, Safe-Sex Advice : Health: The Orange County chapter of ACT-UP says schools are not doing enough to teach AIDS prevention.

An AIDS activist group passed out more than 1,000 candy-colored condoms to Tustin High School students Wednesday in the first of what members said will be monthly protests over AIDS education policies in Orange County schools.

For 25 minutes before first-period classes, students crowded around 10 members of the Orange County chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP). Television cameras and news reporters recorded the event as close to 100 students milled about while the activists distributed the condoms and pamphlets on AIDS prevention and sex.

Linette Davis, a member of ACT-UP, said Tustin High was targeted because school officials teach abstinence there without including information about AIDS prevention.

School officials for the most part stood by impassively, but Tustin Unified School District officials later said what they teach is bound by state curriculum guidelines, which require teaching that abstinence is the only foolproof method of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. Students are taught about AIDS prevention in their seventh- and 10th-grade health classes.

“We can’t promote safe sex and talk about the utilization of condoms because that connotes to some kids that we approve of premarital sex,” District Supt. David L. Andrews said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t know it goes on. We know it does go on, but we don’t want to promote it.”

In Orange County, school districts have different policies on AIDS education, although most, according to district officials, base their sex education curriculum on guidelines laid out in 1989 legislation known as the Russell Bill, which mandated that abstinence be stressed.

For example, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, which has some of the strictest rules in the county, teaches only abstinence, while some teachers, such as George Witt, a health teacher at Tustin High, provides more specific information about AIDS transmission and prevention.

Witt said that while he stresses abstinence according to curriculum guidelines, his frank approach to the subject has drawn complaints from some parents.

“We were answering questions about AIDS, all the way from A to Z, everything from homosexual to anal intercourse, all the kinds of things that the uptight right white don’t want to hear,” Witt said.

Witt said he continued his program after agreeing to field angry phone calls.

Linda Paire, the AIDS education coordinator for the county Department of Education, said that districts usually set their own policies on how AIDS prevention is taught.

“We have 27 districts and we probably have 27 different amounts of information the students receive,” she said. “Some districts have policies that they can’t talk about condoms. I’ve heard some teachers say that they can’t say the ‘c’ word in the classroom unless a student asks them a question.”

At Tustin High on Wednesday, Principal Duffy Clark said some students told him that they were offended by the explicit material passed out by ACT-UP. The flyer includes information on safety during various sexual activities and instructs its reader in condom use, complete with illustrations. But students interviewed said they welcomed the condom distribution and the flyers.

“I think it’s good they’re giving (condoms) out because a lot of kids are afraid to go buy them,” said freshman Chris Roberts, 14.

Many students said their awareness of AIDS has already been heightened by the announcement of Earvin (Magic) Johnson last week that he is infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.

“Everyone’s on the topic of AIDS now. Everyone’s already thinking about it,” Ayisha Jefferson, 14, a freshman, said.

Some youngsters joked about the latex condoms’ bright rainbow colors and the straightforward language in the attached flyers.

“I think mostly people are joking around because their friends are around, so they have to joke,” Andrea Rose, 17, a senior, said. “But deep inside, they’re scared. Who’s going to admit their true feelings to other teen-agers?”

Rose said that her classmates often disregard the information they receive in class as sophomores.

“We spend a week on diseases and stuff,” she said. “Then they tell us to just say no to sex. But at 16 or 17 years old, not many girls are going to say no.”

David Cammack, a member of ACT-UP, agreed that information on AIDS and sexual behavior taught in high school health classes often is ignored.

“While abstinence is the only 100% sure way to prevent the spread of HIV, unprotected sex is like playing Russian roulette,” Cammack said. “It only takes one unprotected sex act to be infected. If teen-agers are going to have sex, they need to know the options on what is considered safe sex and what is not safe sex. Kids will have sex.”

But Louis P. Sheldon of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition criticized ACT-UP for its strategy, saying that giving condoms to teens is contributing to their delinquency.

“When you’re giving out a condom, you’re saying, ‘Here’s a gun, go play Russian roulette with it,’ ” he said. “This is an adversarial procedure against the family and family values.”

The activist group, which has brought on the ire of conservatives through its boisterous campaigns of civil disobedience to protest the need for greater AIDS care and education, will continue to distribute condoms at other county schools in the coming months, members said.

Currently, school districts are not required to provide AIDS education, although some do in health and sex education classes. Last month, Gov. Pete Wilson signed a bill requiring that students in junior and senior high school receive instruction in the prevention of AIDS. The new law will take effect in the 1992-93 school year.

Donald J. Peterson, coordinator of HIV-AIDS prevention in the state Department of Education’s “Healthy Kids, Healthy California” program, said the law requires that the instruction must include information on how AIDS affects the human body, how the HIV is transmitted, and discussion on methods of reducing the risk.

Peterson said the new law also emphasizes that abstinence is the most effective way to prevent HIV infection. But he said that students must also be given information citing the use of condoms to prevent the virus from spreading.

Students should be encouraged to abstain from having sex, Peterson said. But he pointed to statistics which show that teen-agers do not abstain.

According to the 1989-90 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which was sponsored by the state Department of Education and funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control, 50% of California high school students surveyed said they have had sexual intercourse. Many of those who described themselves as sexually active said they did not use a condom the last time they had sexual intercourse.

With the new law in mind, Orange County school and health officials said they will be training teachers to instruct AIDS prevention.

County Supt. of Schools John F. Dean said he already is encouraging the county’s school districts to train its teachers.

“We cannot allow students to be ignorant of AIDS,” Dean said. “Kids are so convinced that they are going to live forever. They go surfing at the Wedge, they drive at high speeds. They say, ‘I can beat it.’ But AIDS is unforgiving.”