Parents Get Panel to Kill Sex Education Proposal : Moorpark: The group persuades a district committee to drop consideration of program to teach high school students about condoms.

Fearful that teaching Moorpark High School students about condoms would promote promiscuity, a group of angry parents successfully lobbied a school district committee Thursday to kill the proposed sex education program.

Helen Taylor, a parent and frequent critic of the district, organized a small but vocal group of parents to attend a meeting of the district’s Growth and Development Committee, which oversees health and sex education curricula in the Moorpark Unified School District.

“It’s like fighting fire with a blast of oxygen,” said Taylor, who is also a member of the committee. “This tells students that it’s OK to engage in sexual activity. It encourages and promotes sex.”

The issue surfaced after Moorpark High School health teacher Rich Uphoff proposed that the committee consider adopting a 12-step instruction program that has been taught at Channel Islands High School in Oxnard.

“This isn’t a recommendation or a proposal,” he told the committee Thursday. “I’m just trying to get some direction to see if you feel this would be appropriate.”

The committee, which includes teachers, school administrators and a school board member, was formed several years ago to develop the district’s abstinence-based sex education curriculum. While the program allows for discussion of contraceptives such as condoms, it has never included details on how to use them.

“Abstinence is still the No. 1 point we make,” Uphoff said. “We make the point that the only way to avoid pregnancy or HIV is abstinence, but we can’t be like ostriches. Eighty-five percent of high school seniors engage in or have engaged in sexual activity.”

Uphoff said the method used in the Channel Islands High class includes a group activity with both male and female students that goes over the steps on the proper use of a condom.

But of about 10 parents at Thursday’s meeting, none spoke in favor of the curriculum. Several condemned the district’s sex education program altogether.

“The more it is discussed the less embarrassed kids are about sex,” said Kandy Zierenberg who took her two daughters out of Moorpark High School in part because of the sex education program. “I think embarrassment solves a lot of problems.”

Patty Daniels, who came to the meeting with her husband, agreed. She said the more that students were exposed to sex education courses the more they would have sex.

Committee member Lorraine Feuerstein was the only one at the meeting to speak in favor of teaching students how to use condoms. Feuerstein’s motion to approve the curriculum, however, failed for lack of a second.

“Ignorance is what we are trying to avoid here,” she said. “Frank speech is essential to prevent disease and pregnancy. I don’t think anyone is comfortable talking about this, but I’d much rather demonstrate the proper use of a condom than read about someone killing their kids.”