Group Tries to Block Student Sex Survey : Education: Leader says, ‘ . . . parents have no idea what they’re really consenting to’ when they give permission for children to answer RAND questionnaire. He is considering legal action.

A group of angry parents is trying to block RAND Corp. from giving Santa Monica High School students a sexually explicit survey unless the school board provides parents with examples of some of the more graphic questions.

Robert Hamilton, leader of a group of 30 to 40 people who protested the survey at a school board meeting late last week, said he is working with lawyers to seek an injunction to stop the survey and modify the package of information sent to parents requesting consent for their children to participate.

“I respect others’ rights to take (the survey),” said Hamilton, a Santa Monica pediatrician. “My main issue at this point is parents have no idea what they’re really consenting to.”

The protesting parents say the detailed questions on sexual behavior are offensive, particularly those dealing with anal sex among boys.

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District takes the position that the consent package gives parents ample opportunity to make an informed choice, said school board President Pam Brady.

The package explains that the survey includes explicit questions about the students’ sexual behavior and says that parents wishing to read the survey can do so at RAND. Parents must mail back a consent form with the “yes” section marked, or give consent over the phone in order for their sons or daughters to participate.

“Santa Monica school district is planning to continue with its commitment and go forward with this survey,” Brady told those gathered at the school board meeting last Thursday at City Hall.

Hamilton’s group has yet to file a lawsuit. The survey will be given to all students who have received parental permission, from ninth to 12th grade, on May 11 during English classes.

The 69-question survey--there is one version for boys and one for girls--is designed primarily to provide a broad look at students’ sexual attitudes and practices. It consists of four sections, only one of which contains detailed questions about the student’s own sexual behavior. Students may skip this section if they choose. Other portions ask about such things as the student’s family, ethnicity, religion and grades. Some questions deal with whether the student has engaged in illegal activity, such as stealing or use of illicit drugs. One section contains questions about the student’s knowledge and attitudes about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The survey also asks whom the student goes to for information about sex.

The flap over the survey has attracted plenty of attention. Local media gave considerable coverage to a news conference and protest staged by Hamilton’s group before last week’s board meeting.

The controversy has been a prime topic on local radio talk shows this week, including Michael Jackson’s call-in show on Monday. Concerned parents are flooding district staff and RAND with questions, although according to those supervising the surveys, few are actually showing up to read the survey.

The survey is being administered in the name of educational research. RAND, the Santa Monica-based think tank, is trying to gauge the effectiveness of the high school’s aggressive sex education program. In April, 1992, Santa Monica High School became the first high school in Los Angeles County to distribute condoms without requiring parental consent.

The first part of the two-part survey was hastily administered in March, 1992, before the condom policy and an AIDS instruction policy went into effect. May’s survey will be similar, but will contain additional questions on condom use.

From the two surveys, researchers hope to determine the change in knowledge, behavior and attitudes toward abstinence, condom use, and activities, sexual and otherwise, which put students at risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

RAND behavioral scientist David Kanouse said the results will help school districts across the nation shape more effective sex education programs.

Kanouse argued against public disclosure to parents of any survey questions on the grounds that it would go against scientific survey methodology and could taint results. Also, he said, focusing on a few lurid questions in a survey that is meant to be taken as a whole would open those questions to the kind of “widespread discussion and debate that creates a circus atmosphere.”

Kanouse acknowledged that the questions on sexual behavior may be shocking to some, but he said the questions must be explicit to pinpoint exactly what students are doing.

“A general question about sexual activity . . . can cover a wide range of behavior,” he said. “It’s only by asking about very specific behaviors and phrasing questions in a way students can understand them that we can get clear answers about what the value and effect of the programs have been.”

Survey opponent Hamilton contended that once confronted with the actual questions in the test, many parents will rescind their approvals. He said he is trying to get in touch with parents who have mailed in consent forms.

Hamilton has already reached a group of parents, either by phone or through an opinion article he wrote recently for The Outlook newspaper. Bernardo Cline, who participated in Thursday’s protest, said the questions undermine the values he tries to impart to his son, now a senior at the high school.

As part of the protest, he read from last year’s survey: “ ‘Think back over the last year, starting back in 1991,’ ” he said in an incredulous voice. “ ‘How many times have you put a penis in a boy’s anus?’ I can’t accept that. This is pure perversion.” (The same question is contained in the survey to be administered next month.)

The protesting parents charge that the questions condone and encourage the behaviors described, are a waste of valuable teaching time or are simply obscene.

But several people spoke in support of the survey. One was Mayor Judy Abdo, who said, “I think it’s better to be offended than to be dead.”

Santa Monica High School senior Tammy Weisberger argued that teen-agers are more informed than parents think. “I know what anal sex is and I’m not offended seeing it on paper,” she said. “It’s not embarrassing. We talk about it. Kids need answers.”

With all the publicity, and because of a change from a passive consent form to an active one that requires a parent to respond, fewer students will be taking the test this year.

Last year, 2,050 students took part; 16 parents mailed in the passive consent form asking that their child not participate in the survey and about 15 additional students chose not to take the test on their own.

This year, 121 parents have refused to let their children participate. RAND has received 1,010 positive responses so far.

Follow-up efforts by RAND to encourage parents to mail back the forms have upset at least one parent. Yvonne Knickerbocker said she felt harassed when RAND called to remind her to send back her form. The fact they hadn’t received it should have been answer enough, she said.

Describing herself as simply a concerned parent, Knickerbocker contended that supporters of the survey and the news media were erroneously attempting to portray the protesters as religious fanatics. She also said she was concerned about the confidentiality of the survey.

“What happens in 10 years when these kids run for politics?” she asked. “Joe Smith used to use heroin--he used to steal stuff.”

Kanouse said great care was taken to ensure the identification code, made up of letters and numbers from the student’s birth date and parent names, could not be traced back to an individual.

As for the follow-up effort, Kanouse said parents who do not return the consent form are sent a postcard, then are called.

The district supplied RAND with phone numbers under a state education code provision that allows giving out limited information to certain groups, said Terry Pearson, district director of pupil and administrative services.

Johanna Chase, a health teacher at Santa Monica High, said the material in the survey is standard fare in ninth-grade health classes.

Chase said she does not ask students about their own behavior, but does cover topics of sexual orientation and vaginal vs. anal sex. The threat of AIDS and other sexually transmitted disease is what makes it necessary, she said.

“If it were not for the fact this disease (AIDS) came about, I feel that these sex practices would not have been brought to the attention of the general public,” she said.

Parents can opt to keep their children out of the sex-related segment of health class, Chase said.

Board member Patricia Hoffman defended the survey and others that have been given at the high school at Thursday’s board meeting.

Surveys have helped shape the district’s health curriculum, she said. A 1987 survey showed that many high school-age students contemplate suicide. Another showed that high school students had negative self-images. Girls starved themselves to be thinner, boys took steroids. The district implemented programs to address these issues.

“The questions are not hurting kids. It’s the practices they’re engaging in,” she said. “Maybe (the survey results) will help a community with parents and a school board who aren’t willing to make these kinds of choices.”