Officials Vow to Save State Education Grant

Orange County education officials pledged Thursday to lobby vigorously to save a $606,000 state grant to combat teen pregnancy, as local Planned Parenthood officials announced a letter-writing effort to win reinstatement in the program.

At a briefing for the county’s Board of Education, staff said state health officials must be persuaded that a proposed pregnancy prevention project will work effectively despite the board’s decision in January to exclude Planned Parenthood.

Trustee Ken Williams said the board’s action arose from “philosophical concerns” about Planned Parenthood. Williams said the January vote should be read as an endorsement of “abstinence-based” sex education and not as a rejection of the goal of reducing teen pregnancy.

On Thursday, The Times reported that the grant was on hold as state officials review the county Department of Education’s decision to exclude Planned Parenthood, which had been included in the original grant proposal and was to receive $3,000 to provide sex education seminars to teens in Anaheim and Garden Grove. In its place, county education officials have proposed hiring Teen Awareness Inc. of Fullerton to give seminars primarily oriented around abstinence.

But Planned Parenthood officials said much more was at stake than the money. In a news release, they announced a “grass-roots letter-writing” campaign, targeting Gov. Pete Wilson and the county education board, in an effort to affirm “responsible sex education in Orange County schools.”

Ann Marie Wallace, a spokeswoman for the group, said 1,000 supporters would be mobilized. She called abstinence-only education unrealistic. “It’s telling kids to say no, when they don’t even know what to say no to,” Wallace said.