CALABASAS : Schools Plan to Boost AIDS Education

The Las Virgenes Unified School District plans to expand its AIDS education program fourfold, boosting AIDS awareness training from a freshman workshop to one offered every year.

The move comes in response to requests last spring from students who said they “felt shortchanged by our current program,” district Supt. Albert (Bud) Marley said.

The new program would dramatically exceed state requirements that public high schools and middle schools offer an AIDS awareness class to students at least once, Marley said.

“We meet the letter of the law right now,” Marley said. “But it is my belief, and certainly the consensus of most of the students, parents, teachers and Board of Education that the letter of the law is not meeting our responsibility to our young people.”

Under the new plan, AIDS awareness would be taught for an hour a day over several days either by regular teachers or specialists, Marley said. The school board is not required to vote on the matter. A few parents oppose expanding AIDS education, Marley said, but the “overwhelming majority” supports it.

Kim Barrus, who helped form a group of about 30 Agoura High School parents opposed to certain types of AIDS-related programs last year, said he supports teaching children about AIDS as long as the emphasis is on abstaining from sex.

“When they start teaching that you won’t get AIDS if you use a condom, they are ignoring medical facts,” said Barrus, a former school board candidate. “There is no such thing as safe sex.”

State law allows parents to exempt their children from AIDS-related education without penalty.

Marley said the new program will emphasize abstinence as “the only way to be 100% sure of avoiding AIDS.”

The program will be in place for seniors and, if possible, juniors and sophomores before graduation next spring, Marley said.