OXNARD : Panel Urges Limit on Condom Education

An advisory committee for the Oxnard Elementary School District has concluded that children below the seventh grade should not be taught about the use of condoms unless they ask about them.

The committee was asked in November to review the district’s curriculum dealing with AIDS, after the announcement by basketball star Magic Johnson that he had contracted the virus that causes AIDS.

The task force is scheduled to report to the board of trustees at the 7:30 p.m. meeting tonight at district headquarters.

The board of trustees asked the task force to study whether students in the sixth grade or below should be taught about the use of condoms to reduce the risk of contracting the AIDS virus. Students now receive such instruction in the seventh grade.

Over several months, members of the task force, including teachers, parents and administrators, considered the question at several meetings and attended a county-sponsored conference on family life education.

The advisory committee concluded that the district’s 12,200 students already receive “the most comprehensive course of study currently available (in the county),” said Jeanne P. Adams, an Oxnard elementary school administrator and member of the panel.

Instead of instructing all students below seventh grade about condoms, the committee advised that only when students ask questions about the use of condoms should “accurate and appropriate” information be provided.

Task force member Ethel Hayman, a school district health adviser, said the committee had concerns about the “double message” that teaching about condoms might send students. “The committee felt that giving information about condoms below the seventh grade could undermine the concept of abstinence,” Hayman said.

The recommendation disappointed Jack Fowler, the school board trustee who pressed for more condom information or even a condom distribution program.

Fowler said he will probably recommend that condom information be taught at lower grades despite the committee’s recommendation. He said he remains concerned about the high number of teen-age pregnancies among district students.