Today’s Lesson: Condoms : Activists Target High School for Giveaway to Curb AIDS Among Teen-Agers

“Free condoms! Free condoms!” the activist called out as students walked through the front gates of Theodore Roosevelt High School. “Free condoms!”

Several students giggled, blushed and strolled by on their way to Tuesday morning classes. And several coolly accepted the gift. “They’re, like, for all this pregnancy going around,” surmised a senior on the Roughriders basketball team.

Yes and no. In a series of visits to Los Angeles high schools in recent weeks, members of the AIDS Coaltion to Unleash Power (ACT UP) have entered an intense debate over AIDS education in the country’s second-largest school district. Along with condoms, they provide a cautionary message concerning the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The epidemic has already claimed more than 125,000 lives in the United States and is believed to have infected more than 1 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Rather than warn of unwanted pregnancies, ACT UP members handed out flyers that read: “What They Won’t Teach You Can Kill You!”

Exactly what the Los Angeles Unified School District teaches students about AIDS--and what role condoms may play in that education--is the subject of an ongoing series of public hearings, including one at Roosevelt’s Boyle Heights campus Dec. 3.

At issue is a plan proposed by a task force composed of medical experts, educators, parents and gay activists. The panel, after a two-year study, recommended that AIDS education start in the fifth grade and that the district make condoms available to junior and senior high school students. So far, health clinics at only three of the Los Angeles district’s 49 schools dispense condoms to students who request them.

Their recommendation has met fierce resistance from some parents and religious fundamentalists who contend that condom distribution will only promote sexual activity among teen-agers.

If the Los Angeles school board implements the task force plan, the district will join New York City schools as a major supplier of condoms for youths. New York school officials initiated their condom distribution program Tuesday.

In taking their message directly to high school students as well as school board meetings, ACT UP emphasizes that 20% of Americans infected with HIV are teen-agers, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control.

Small squads of ACT UP members also handed out condoms at Venice High School on Tuesday. Roosevelt was chosen in part because of increasing HIV transmission rates in the Latino community, ACT UP member David Brown said.

“We’re here trying to save lives,” Brown said outside Roosevelt’s gates as students headed for class. “We believe the (AIDS task force) recommendations should be approved and extensive AIDS education should be made part of the curriculum.”

Brown disputed the contentions that condom distribution would encourage teen-agers to engage in sex.

“Abstinence is the the only away to avoid AIDS, but teen-agers experiment and they have to know the facts,” he said.

Arturo Del Rio, a Roosevelt assistant principal, agreed that teen-agers need to be better informed about AIDS, but questioned ACT UP’s methods. Such tactics, he said, may only further antagonize parents who don’t like the idea of schools, much less strangers, handing out condoms to their children.

“Most young people need more information--and factual information,” Del Rio said. But as for condom distribution, Del Rio added: “I know our parents are opposed to any such program on campus. . . . Something like this is only going to fortify the negative image when they see these kind of individuals passing out condoms to children.”

Only a small fraction of the school’s 4,000 students received condoms and flyers that included a drawing describing how to wear a condom. Flyers also cautioned against the sharing of needles in intravenous drug use, tattooing and ear-piercing.

Students offered a range of reactions. ACT UP members seemed to get a better response when they simply handed out their flyers with the condom attached than when they shouted out their wares.

The basketball player was upset about Earvin (Magic) Johnson’s retirement because of HIV infection. “For a superstar to go out like that. . . . He should have worn a condom.”

A 15-year-old girl named Anna carried her twin “babies”--actually, two eggs decorated with happy faces--in a straw basket as part of a class assignment to provide a lesson in parental responsibility. “These people see what we’re getting into and they want us to be safe,” Anna said.

Sixteen-year-old Veronica, carrying a copy of “The Grapes of Wrath,” also reached for a condom.

Parents and priests talk about moral standards, Veronica said, and teachers “tell us to be careful.” Many students were getting the message, she said, but many were not.

Veronica said she wasn’t getting the condom for herself, but for a girlfriend.

“Me, personally, I wouldn’t go that far.”