School District Drafts Guidelines on Condoms : * AIDS: They would be made available on high school campuses. Board members had disagreed on method of distribution.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is working on a plan to make condoms available to high school students as awareness about AIDS and HIV infection heightens among school districts across the country.

District nurses, who deal most intimately with teen-agers about sexuality, are modifying a rough draft that draws from policies already in place at other school districts, including one recently approved by the Los Angeles Uni fied School District. The rough draft was not released to the public.

The revised plan is scheduled for board discussion Feb. 24.

At last week’s meeting, board members agreed that condoms should be readily available at high school campuses, but their opinions on how they should be handed out ranged from a help-yourself method to requiring visits with a counselor who would encourage abstinence from sex.

The distribution method “I’ve always favored,” said board member Michael Hill, “is that you have a fishbowl in the nurse’s office that says ‘help yourself.’ I do not want to see one child die because he had to see (someone) first, and didn’t want do that.”

Other board members suggested counseling by peers and handing out condoms in packets containing information flyers. Board president Connie Jenkins said students must be told that condoms are not fail-safe, and that the only sure way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases is through abstinence.

“I think we have to make it clear that we are not condoning sexual activity,” she said.

The district’s health advisory committee, PTA and members of the community are being asked for their input. Board members said they wanted the policy to take effect as soon as possible. It could be ready for a vote by early March.

“We seem to have an exploding problem among young adults and teen-agers that wasn’t the case a few years ago,” said board member Mary Kay Kamath.

The Centers for Disease Control estimate that 20% of all HIV-infected Americans are teen-agers, and experts say the rate of infection is increasing rapidly.

If the Santa Monica school district adopts a condom policy, it will join many others with policies already in place, including New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and several smaller districts.

Two other Westside school districts, Culver City and Beverly Hills, have AIDS and HIV-infection instruction in place. But board members in those cities said they have yet to publicly discuss a policy on condom distribution.

The Santa Monica school board also discussed a draft policy on AIDS and HIV-infection instruction at the meeting. Some instruction is already in place. The policy is scheduled to come back for a vote Tuesday.

High school nurse Cheryl Bader said she thinks the condom policy should be a small part of a sex education program that emphasizes real-life situations and encourages abstinence. Students should learn things like how to say no to sex and how to ask a potential partner about past sexual activity, she said.

“Kids talk to me daily about becoming sexually active,” she said. “I think a lot more kids would choose abstinence if it was out there for them to look at and incorporate.”

The school board’s student representative, Mike Vogel, is organizing a forum where students will be able to tell board members and staff how they think condoms should be made available.

“The major buzz around campus is it’s a smart thing to do,” he said. “The question is how many people would use it. . . . You have to handle this delicately or it won’t be taken seriously.”

Only one board member, Peggy Lyons, has publicly voiced doubts about giving out condoms. She feared it would interfere with getting funding for a campus health clinic. But she has since changed her mind.

“The tone has changed dramatically in the last six months,” she said. “There was Magic Johnson’s announcement; L.A. Unified paved the way. I’d certainly vote in favor of (a policy).”

Jenkins believes the rest of the board will vote in favor of distributing condoms as well, if they can agree on the details of how to hand them out.

“I think most parents don’t want their kids to be sexually active,” she said, “But teen-agers make decisions every day whether we want them to or not. It’s critical that they be safe in the decisions they make.”