GLENDALE : District Agrees to Review Canceled Play

Glendale school district officials have agreed to formally review a canceled AIDS awareness play if parents at Hoover High School still want it performed during class time.

“We would give it a second look if in fact the Parent-Teacher-Student Assn. wishes the district to do so,” said Vic Pallos, spokesman for the Glendale Unified School District. The district canceled the play just one day before the scheduled Feb. 8 performance.

Pallos said the review process involves an evaluation only and does not guarantee that district staff will permit the showing of “Secrets,” a play produced by the Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente hospital care organization.

If the district refuses to allow the play to be performed during school hours, Hoover officials still have the option of asking the district for permission to show it after school. Given those two options, PTSA members said they are willing to take their chances with a formal review process.

“I’m not satisfied with it, but I’m willing to try to work within the system,” Carolyn Crane, AIDS awareness chairwoman for the PTSA, said Thursday. “I would like them to have a second look at it. I am hoping they will say that ‘Secrets’ can go on” during school.

District officials said the play, about a boy who is HIV-positive, was canceled because it conflicts with district policy. “Secrets” promotes the use of condoms for safe sex, but the district wants abstinence to be taught as the only way to avoid acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Donald W. Empey, deputy superintendent of educational services, said his staff has been working on proposed guidelines for evaluating such sex education-related programs as “Secrets.” No formal review procedure had existed in the district before.

“We’re moving along to get it done as quickly as possible,” Empey said. “Once staff has developed these guidelines, it will be submitted to the board for approval.”

The new process would also require campuses to report any outside sex-education-related programs or speakers to district officials, he said.

Three years ago, “Secrets” was shown at Daily High Continuation School--next to district offices, said Principal Ted Tiffany. Pallos said the district was not aware that the play was presented at the time.

Hoover PTSA President Susan Kussman doubts that a review process would resolve the controversy surrounding “Secrets.”

“They’ll probably put some process together that not even God can comply with,” Kussman said.