OJAI : Students Support Condom Dispensers

Condom dispensers would be placed in high school restrooms and schools would be open only to legal U. S. residents if a small group of Nordhoff High students had their way.

The two controversial proposals were among the ideas to come out of a student leadership workshop attended by about 60 homeroom representatives and student officers last month, said Jennifer Walters, 17, a Nordhoff senior.

Both Jennifer and junior Sarah Wright, 16, said the proposals were controversial, but noted that the purpose of the Ojai school’s Student Advisory Board on Education was to afford every participant the opportunity to raise topics they think schools should be debating.

Sarah said it was not unusual that Nordhoff students would bring forward two proposals that seem to be on opposing ends of the ideological spectrum. “It may be that a very liberal person came up with one of the ideas and a very conservative person came up with the other,” she said.

Jennifer, a second-year participant in the program, said it was important to open the debate up to as many ideas as possible. “We don’t try to filter anything out. The whole process of SABE is about the concerns and ideas of the people in the high schools,” Walters said.

Although Nordhoff students as a whole did not vote on the condom-dispenser and proof-of-legal-residency proposals, workshop participants gave them enough support to forward them to the regional meeting for further debate, Jennifer said.

At the regional meeting, 29 student representatives from Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties voted to forward the proposals to a statewide conference in Sacramento later this year, said Tamie Vervoorn, a senior at Buena High School in Ventura who is regional director of the program.

“Many felt the legal residency requirement was unfair to Hispanics, but a slight majority believed it wrong to use taxpayer money for free lunches and special programs for illegal aliens when schools are hurting financially,” Tamie said.

Nordhoff High Principal Ron Barney said the program is a valuable learning device that allows students to participate in the debate over education. But he said this year’s proposals may not be representative of the school as a whole.

“I think there probably should be processes which call for consensus, and perhaps even a more representative group of the student body should vote on the proposals,” he said.