Schools Will Gear AIDS Lessons to Kindergarten

In addition to finger-painting and learning to write their names, children as young as 5 years old will be taught about AIDS in five Ventura County school districts this fall as part of a controversial effort to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.

The youngsters will join a small number of students in California elementary schools who receive lessons about AIDS, which begin in the lower grades with reassurances that children do not generally contract the disease and progress to explanations of how it is transmitted.

Though Ventura County educators have strived to design age-appropriate lessons, the programs remain controversial. For example, the Santa Paula Elementary Board of Education in June rejected a program that teachers had spent months developing after 600 parents objected to its explicitness. The board has since established a parents committee that will help draw up a new curriculum by September.

‘Very Touchy Thing’

“Parents are going to come out of the woodwork when these programs begin,” said Dale Forgey, superintendent of the Somis Union School District. He has decided against instituting the program in the early elementary grades. “It’s a very touchy thing.”

The subject is so sensitive that San Diego Unified officials said they will wait until fall, 1990, to introduce AIDS awareness programs to third-graders. The district now mentions the disease beginning in sixth grade.

“If I had my way, we’d start in kindergarten,” said Edward Fletcher, district director of health services in San Diego. “But I recognize parents would probably object, so we’ll take it slow and avoid creating opposition.”

A state Department of Education survey found that only about 1% of kindergarten students statewide received instruction about AIDS during the 1987-88 school year. In kindergarten through sixth grade, less than 10% of students learned about AIDS, while more than half of students in grades seven to 12 received AIDS instruction, the same survey reported.

Beverly Bradley, an AIDS education consultant for the Department of Education, refused to list school districts with AIDS programs for kindergartners and other young students. The state promised the districts answering the survey anonymity because administrators have found that publicity brings a flood of negative mail, she said.

Pilot Program

Most children enrolled in public schools in the San Fernando Valley are not taught about AIDS until seventh grade, although a pilot program began recently for fifth- and sixth-graders in 60 of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 413 elementary schools, said Ruth Rich, a district health education specialist. Two of the Valley schools involved are Pomelo Drive School in West Hills and Cohasset Street School in Van Nuys.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig recommended in May that age-appropriate information about acquired immune deficiency syndrome be taught to all schoolchildren as a means of preventing the spread of the epidemic.

The five Ventura County school districts that plan to offer AIDS instruction for elementary school children in the fall--Moorpark and Ventura Unified, and Oxnard, Ocean View and Santa Paula Elementary--are in various stages of developing such programs.

Moorpark and Oxnard are beginning to train teachers, although officials stressed that their programs are still sketchy and will be expanded with teachers’ help. Programs at Ocean View, Santa Paula and Ventura are still in the early stages of development.

Although they will vary from district to district, the AIDS programs will be incorporated into health and sex-education programs that include lessons about other communicable diseases, hygiene and illness prevention, Ventura County school district officials said. Guidelines published by various agencies, such as the national Centers for Disease Control and the American Red Cross, have been helpful, officials said.

Allay Fears

The Centers for Disease Control recommends that AIDS education for students in early elementary grades be designed to allay fears of the epidemic. In Moorpark, for instance, in the course of learning about health and nutrition, kindergartners will be taught that AIDS is a serious disease that young children rarely get, said Esther Garnica, a science teacher who spent a year researching the subject before writing the curriculum at the request of the school board.

Moorpark kindergartners will also learn that they cannot get AIDS just by being near or touching someone who has it, Garnica said. Oxnard kindergartners will be introduced to similar concepts, said Ethel Hayman, a sixth-grade teacher who helped develop the district’s program.

In the first through third grades, the concept that AIDS is not transmitted through casual contact--such as by holding hands--will be reiterated, officials said. In addition, Oxnard students will be taught to avoid rituals such as becoming “blood relatives” by cutting their fingers and mingling their blood. They will also be told to avoid picking up trash that they might find on the street, such as discarded intravenous needles, Hayman said.

In fourth grade, Moorpark and Oxnard students will learn that AIDS is caused by a virus that affects the immune system and that no cure exists. By fifth grade, when students are introduced to the human reproductive system, they will learn that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease, officials said.

Parents’ permission must be obtained whenever sexual issues are discussed, school officials said. If parents choose to exclude their children from the AIDS program, the students will visit the library during the lessons, officials said. Before the programs begin in the fall, the districts will hold informational sessions for parents or send literature home.

In addition, all California school districts will be bound by a state law that becomes effective July 1 and requires teachers to stress sexual abstinence until marriage as the only sure way to avoid teen-age pregnancy, AIDS and venereal diseases. The law, introduced by state Sen. Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale), was supported by anti-abortion groups and religious organizations.

One problem Santa Paula parents had last summer with the AIDS program devised by teachers was that it did not sufficiently stress abstinence, said Michelle Kolbeck, a parent appointed by the board to help draw up the new curriculum. Kolbeck said the Centers for Disease Control guidelines adopted by Moorpark and Oxnard seem tame enough in theory, but will be impossible to adhere to.

“Kids will ask questions about how you get AIDS, and teachers will elaborate,” said Kolbeck, who has five young children. “The district showed us one film that mentioned condoms.” It was shown to fourth-graders, she said.

“I don’t think elementary schoolchildren have any business learning about adult alternatives like that,” Kolbeck said.

Santa Paula district officials declined to comment other than to say that they welcomed parents’ interest in the upcoming program.

Not Covered by Guidelines

Teachers and administrators in other districts acknowledge that discussing AIDS with youngsters may lead to classroom conversations not covered by curriculum guidelines.

Garnica, the teacher who wrote the Moorpark curriculum, said, “The rules are very clear in Moorpark--persistent students will be referred to their parents if they want to know how AIDS is actually transmitted.”

But in Pasadena--where the school district last fall started teaching AIDS education beginning in the first grade--teachers sometimes take inquisitive students aside to discuss sensitive subjects rather than automatically referring them to their parents, said Pat Lachelt. No parents have complained, she said. Since there is no cure for AIDS, “the only method of prevention we have is by educating people early and honestly--we have no choice,” Lachelt said.

As of March 1, Los Angeles County had 6,495 AIDS cases, or about 78 per 100,000 people, according to the state Department of Health Services. In contrast, Ventura County had 81 AIDS cases, or about 13 cases per 100,000 people.

The relatively low number of cases puts Ventura County teachers “in an excellent position to educate our young people and tell them how to avoid becoming AIDS statistics” beginning in elementary school, said Martina Rippy, a nurse with Ventura County’s Local AIDS Assistance Program, which helps provide schools with information about the disease.

“Why should we wait until the incidence of AIDS in Ventura County increases and then wring our hands?”