SANTA ANA : Trustees Adopt Sex Education Program

The Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Trustees this week narrowly approved a sex education program that encourages abstinence.

The board split 3 to 2 on the decision to adopt Education Now and Babies Later. Topics will include peer pressure, the glamorization of sex by the media and assertiveness training on ways to say no.

The board drew up a list of rules under which the program will be taught. They include written parental consent, omitting family planning information and emphasizing abstinence from sex until marriage. In addition, ENABL will only supplement and not replace existing sex education.

More than a dozen supporters, including parents, teachers and students, urged the board to adopt the program.

Cynthia Scheinberg, executive director of the Coalition for Children, Adolescents and Parents, which is coordinating the pilot program, said ENABL is crucial because Santa Ana has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation and because the program has been shown to reduce teen pregnancy.

In 1990, 288 students from 10 to 14 years old became pregnant in Orange County, she said. Although ENABL has been offered in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino counties, this would be the first time it is implemented in Orange County.

Funded by the state Department of Health Services, ENABL targets boys and girls between 12 and 14. It will begin in spring and be taught during five one-hour sessions.

Trustees Robert W. Balen, Audrey Yamagata-Noji and Sal Mendoza voted in favor of it while Rosemarie Avila and Richard C. Hernandez opposed the program’s immediate adoption.

Avila objected to a questionnaire to be given to students before and after the program. Students would be asked to write whether they agree or disagree with statements such as, “I believe it is OK to have sex with a serious boyfriend or girlfriend,” and “I believe it is OK to have sex with someone I like.”

Avila praised the program but objected to the questionnaire because it does not mention sex in the context of marriage. She said some students who have been raised to believe that sex is only appropriate for married couples might read the questionnaire and wonder whether that belief is valid.

Hernandez asked to postpone the vote and sided with Avila when the board declined to delay the decision.

Balen urged the board to adopt the program immediately, saying it made no sense “to submarine a program because a questionnaire lacks one question.” He recounted a meeting with an eighth-grade student who married after getting pregnant and also cited statistics showing that 54% of high school students are sexually active.

“That’s an epidemic. AIDS is an epidemic and with an epidemic you don’t wait . . . you treat them so they don’t spread,” he said.