The decision to make condoms part of everyday high-school life has been accompanied everywhere by an outpouring of emotions and protest. Even in San Francisco, where HIV infection among teens is estimated to be doubling every 16 to 18 months, a recently adopted plan (scheduled to go into effect next year) was staunchly opposed by the Roman Catholic archbishop and some parent groups. Students need parental consent to participate. New York’s school system, where condoms will be available in all 120 high schools by the end of the year, is the only one that doesn’t insist on parental permission. “Some parents think their kids don’t have sex, and they don’t want condoms in the schools,” says Latoya Taylor, 15, a sophomore at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles. “My mom says they should go for it.”
The mere mention of the word condom makes people anxious, says Diana Munatones, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District. “Parents want to see us promoting chastity, but we must educate students to the reality. " That reality can mean revamping sex-education curricula now in place. While students in many cities learn about AIDS starting in kindergarten, programs in the upper grades are being reshaped with a highly pragmatic approach. In Chicago, where three school-based health clinics have been dispensing free condoms (and other forms of birth control) since 1985, more emphasis on AIDS prevention is now being offered, along with overall health care.
Some educators think high-intensity sex-education classes are a more appropriate way for schools to intervene in the AIDS crisis than distributing condoms. John Silber, president of Boston University, which for the third year is managing the public schools in Chelsea, Mass., is firmly opposed to condoms. Even though an estimated 20 percent of Chelsea’s adolescents have some form of STD, Silber says that providing condoms is not a simple health issue. “The people who are supposed to be mentors are saying, ‘Here’s the condom so you can have safe sex’,” he says. In fact, he adds, condoms provide only “safer” sex, and the schools could be legally liable if the devices fail. He believes the schools would be morally liable as well, “if they encourage sex by children who have no business engaging in these activities. Put me down as one of the few unwilling to go along with the decadence of his time.”
Other school officials insist that providing condoms is not intended to send a message sanctioning teenage sex. Values should be established at home, not imposed by the schools, says internist Dr. Aliza Lifshitz, who speaks to parents of Los Angeles students about the medical aspects of AIDS prevention. “Most parents are scared and they want help,” says Los Angeles school-board member Jeff Horton. “The schools are not perfect, but they’re a lot better than MTV for teaching kids about sex.”
Whether kids will pay as much attention to safe-sex advice in school as they do to suggestive music videos is a big question. The Oxnard Elementary School District in Ventura County, Calif., provides straight talk about how students can protect themselves from STDs in the seventh and eighth grades. “Now we’re wondering whether we need to lower the age,” says Jack Fowler, a member of the district’s board of trustees. The reason: in the past two years, the district has had two pregnancies in the fifth grade. “They were not caused by divine intervention,” says Fowler. “So somebody in the fifth grade is doing something. And if [children] are sexually active, they need to know how to protect themselves.” With childhood innocence rapidly becoming a quaint relic, giving out condoms in the schools is, at best, only a small part of the solution to a problem of staggering proportions.
Kindergarten to grade 3 14% Grade 4 to grade 6 45% Grade 7 to grade 8 29% Grade 9 to grade 12 11%
