BURBANK : District to Vote on AIDS Curriculum

A proposal to teach seventh- and ninth-grade Burbank students about the dangers of AIDS will be voted on by the Burbank Unified School District Board of Education today.

A state law, in effect for a year, requires schools to include in their health classes the latest medical information on the failure rate of condoms and methods of preventing an infection by the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, spread mostly through sexual contact.

Health teachers in the Burbank school district have been teaching about AIDS in the seventh- and ninth-grade classes this year, but without a curriculum to standardize the information or textbook information. Health classes are only taught to seventh- and ninth-graders.

The Burbank chapter of the American Red Cross has donated $8,500 to the school district to pay for the books needed to teach the proposed curriculum, which is one or two weeks long, said Andrea Canady, the district’s director of curriculum and bilingual education. Canady said she hoped to begin buying the books next week if the board approves the curriculum.

“One never knows,” Canady said of board approval. “This is a controversial subject and I suspect there may be people at the board meeting who are against it.”