Condom availability in schools

Abstract

The author worked as Special Assistant to the Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools. She was responsible for overseeing the consolidation of HIV/AIDS health-related services and programs, creating the Division of Student Support Services, and designing and implementing the HIV/AIDS prevention education program. The New York City HIV/AIDS prevention education program consists of not just condom availability, but also training, curriculum, and services for students, parents, and faculty at all grade levels from kindergarten through 12th grade. Condom availability was the most controversial aspect of the program until the K-6 HIV/AIDS curriculum was introduced. This latter component sparked even greater opposition. People fail to acknowledge that healthy adolescence is a period of transition from childhood asexuality to the active sexuality of adulthood. Adolescents experiment and take risks of all kinds, including sexual risks; they do not abstain from sexual intercourse. In the era of HIV and AIDS, effective risk prevention strategies must therefore be comprehensive and target adolescents generally. There is no room for compromise. This acknowledgement by school officials of the realities of adolescent sex behavior drove them to not limit condom availability to a sub-population of youths. This stance agitated an already existent social self-consciousness about adolescent sexuality around which conservative parents and religious groups organized to oppose the education and distribution program. The author describes her experience in the struggle to bring education and contraceptive and health services to school children and adolescents in New York City.