SCHOOLS : Sex Education Program Focuses on Abstinence

The eighth-graders had seen it all before.

A model wearing tight jeans and a bra. A man and a woman draped over a motorcycle. A couple passionately embracing in an ad for toothpaste.

The kids in Room 401 at Lennox Middle School already knew about the power of sex. On Friday, they learned a little about how to resist it.

“I see a lot of stuff about sex on TV and magazines,” said Daymein Richardson, a 14-year-old student at Lennox. “But it isn’t true. It’s not like real life.”

Through slide shows and discussions, a state-funded program is trying to help kids understand media and peer pressures to have sex. The goal is to encourage abstinence among teen-agers, who had about 12% of the babies born in Los Angeles County in 1992.

The program, started in 1991 and called Education Now and Babies Later, targets 12- to 14-year-olds. In the South Bay, schools in Lennox and Inglewood use the curriculum as part of regular sex education classes, which include information about contraception.

The Youth and Family Center in Inglewood, which administers the program locally, uses high school students rather than adults to present the material.

“That way, it’s not just a teacher standing up there talking to them,” said Linda Potter, a Lennox administrator. “The presentation is much closer to the level of the children, and that makes a big difference.”

“It’s not boring like other classes,” said Jessie Alvarez, 14. “We take it seriously, but it’s also a lot of fun.”

Students participate in five one-hour sessions covering a range of topics.

The first session looks at the risks of early sexual involvement. The second and third sessions deal with pressures from society, the media and peers. A fourth class teaches verbal and nonverbal assertiveness techniques. As a follow-up, educators hold a fifth session a few weeks later to reinforce the concepts and techniques.

“We’re helping young people to understand that they can say no without hurting someone’s feelings,” said Judith Pratt of the state Office of Family Planning.

So far, the program has reached more than 180,000 students in California and more than 2,000 in Lennox and Inglewood. The Los Angeles Unified School District also incorporates the material, as do districts in Culver City and Beverly Hills, Pratt said.

Officials for the Youth and Family Center in Inglewood said they hope to expand the program to schools in Hawthorne, Lawndale and Torrance next year.

After three years, the program will soon be evaluated by researchers at UC Berkeley to see if the presentations keep youths from having sex.

Potter of Lennox Middle School said she believes the program has made kids at least consider postponing sex.

“We have learned, and studies have shown, that if you just give kids the information about reproduction, it doesn’t have much impact,” Potter said. “This program helps them to think through their choices. It reinforces the idea that they are in control of their body.”