Sex Education Class Kicked Out of School

A federally funded, county-approved AIDS education program has been banned from Antelope Valley high schools because one of the lecturers answered a student’s question about oral sex.

“That is not appropriate for the students,” Antelope Valley Union High School District President Sue Stokka said in an interview Wednesday. Any discussion of sexual activity, other than abstinence, should be off-limits for students, she said.

“They could live the rest of their lives without any knowledge of oral sex. What they need is to be steered away from any form of sex outside of marriage, anyway.”

The Catalyst Foundation for AIDS Awareness and Care--the only AIDS foundation in the Antelope Valley--had presented the program more than 100 times in schools since 1992, until it was banned in January. The foundation, which has been trying quietly to reinstate it since then, went public this month with its protest against the ban.

Stokka said the board was unaware of the program until a parent complained.

California high schools are required by state law to provide some AIDS education, and Stokka said the board is now designing a replacement program.

Susan Lawrence, founder and executive director of the Catalyst Foundation, said her group had never before received a complaint about the program. The foundation’s presentations do stress abstinence, but the group also feels it is important to talk about how the disease is transmitted sexually and through drug abuse, said Lawrence, a Lancaster physician whose practice deals exclusively with HIV and AIDS.

“To say that kids are not going to experiment with these kinds of behaviors is not in touch with reality,” Lawrence said. “We know kids are having sex. If we don’t give them this information, we are depriving them of information they need in order to live.”

Stokka said she opposes discussions of condoms, a basic AIDS-prevention measure which was part of the foundation instruction.

“It is illegal for any minor to have sex, either with each other or an adult,” she said. “So, why are we teaching them about, quote, safer sex, unquote, at all? Why are we teaching them to break the law?”

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Last year, the Catalyst Foundation received a grant of about $55,000 for the program in federal funds administered by the Los Angeles County Department of Health.

The foundation’s application for the grant included a verification that the group had permission to speak in the Antelope Valley schools, signed by District Supt. Robert Girolamo.

Calls to the superintendent’s office on Wednesday were not returned.

County officials said that the presentation plan submitted by Catalyst met their guidelines. “We reviewed their materials and determined they were appropriate for the target audience,” said John Schunhoff, director of AIDS programs for the county Department of Health.

Schunhoff said a member of his staff who observed one of the presentations “thought it was done very well.”

The presentation that led to the ban occurred in November at Quartz Hill High School near Lancaster. Senior class President Michael Ambriz said it seemed uneventful at the time to most students.

“I have talked to students who were in the class,” Ambriz said. “The question about oral sex was asked, answered and they just moved on.”

The question concerned what protection should be used during oral sex. “We get that question all the time,” Lawrence said.

The presenter answered that a condom, dental dam (a latex sheet sometimes used in dentistry) or even plastic wrap can be used. Stokka called the answer inaccurate and misleading.

“It’s dangerous,” she said. “There is no way a little piece of material is going to be protection,” she said, speaking of the dental dam. “And certainly not plastic wrap.”

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AIDS experts disagree. A brochure, “Safer Sex,” issued by the county recommends use of dental dams. Use of plastic wrap in some situations is recommended by AIDS Project Los Angeles, the largest AIDS organization on the West Coast.

It was the subject matter itself, however, that brought the presentations to the attention of the school board.

Meeting in closed session late last year, the board split 2-2 to banish the foundation’s program because of a complaint by a parent, Stokka said. Stokka said the superintendent told the board that a hospitalized fifth trustee--who is now dead--favored a ban, which was counted as the deciding vote.

Lawrence said her group was not notified of the action until lecturers were in the midst of a series of presentations at Palmdale High School. “We were giving three presentations that day,” she said. “After the second one, a teacher told us we would have to leave, we could not do the third presentation.”

Catalyst Foundation members and supporters plan to go before the school board on May 1 to ask that the decision be reversed. Lawrence said they will propose that students be required to bring a permission slip from home in order to attend a Catalyst lecture.

Catalyst speaker Lorraine Watkins, 28, said she is convinced it is crucial that the lectures continue. A 1986 Antelope Valley High School graduate, she received no AIDS education there because, “They didn’t think we needed to know,” she said.

She married a man who had abused drugs before their marriage, she said. “Ten years down the line, and I’m HIV-symptomatic, my husband is dead, my son is dead. There is nothing I can do about it, but we can only hope by going around talking like this, we can prevent someone’s nightmare.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Controversial Currculum

The following is an outline of the AIDS education program that has been banned from Antelope Valley high schools.

1. Testimonials from people affected by HIV are presented. Speakers are from a variety of backgrounds and have different stories, which will assist students in identifying with the human aspect of AIDS.

2. Basic AIDS information:

* What is HIV?* What is the difference between HIV and AIDS?

* How HIV is transmitted: unprotected sex (oral, anal, vaginal), sharing of needles, transfusion of infected blood or blood products (pre-1985), being born or nursed by an HIV-postive mother.

* How HIV is not transmitted: various forms of casual contact, mosquitoes, donating blood.

* Prevention: abstinence from sex outside of a mutually monogamous relationship, correct use of protection, avoid use and sharing of needles and, if sharing is unavoidable, how to clean needles properly, abstinence from sex and drugs is the only certain way to avoid HIV infection.

* Testing: current tests that are available, explanation of “window period” between infection and the development of a positive HIV test, resources for free, anonymous testing.

3. AIDS hotline and where to go for help.

4. Question- and- answer period.

Source: Catalyst Foundation for AIDS Awareness and Care.